A Fairy Tale

CHAPTER ONE

No! No! No! NOOOO!

I shot up out of the nightmare like a rocket-powered jack-in-the-box, soaked with sweat and screaming bloody murder.

My dying cries echoed back to me from the bedroom's bare white walls as I dragged air into my lungs in deep, ragged gasps. I shivered uncontrollably and not because I was cold. Christ, that sucked.

Jeremy again. My tormentor and my love.

Shit.

I untangled myself from a twist of satin sheets and planted my feet on the chilly, wood floor. Elbows on knees, I sat with my head in my still-quivering hands. Was that six nights in a row now, or seven? That’s some math I didn’t care to pursue. The fact that I'm one of those people who dreams in vivid color and always, always remembers his dreams was depressing enough. At some point during the nightmare, though, a wholly unrelated element usually pops up and alters it just enough to keep my blood pressure from streaking off into the stratosphere. A few nights earlier, for example, Al Roker had dropped by wearing nothing but a smile and asked if he could borrow a cup of marmalade. Tonight's little excursion into my subconscious had been no frills, out and out total recall as if I'd watched the accident unfold from the front row of a 3-D IMAX theater.

It was also different in another, more disturbing way. I'd never before had the overpowering urge to run after waking up. And I don't mean bolt out of my bedroom or house but rather jump in my car and just go. Get the hell out of Dodge. Craig T. Nelson and family fleeing in their station wagon at the end of Poltergeist flashed through my mind. Yes. That was the anxious sensation I felt. Gotta go, gotta go. Like, now.

I shook my head and pushed the thought away. The goofy feeling didn’t include a destination and I wasn’t being hassled by a house full of cranky ghosts, so I figured it couldn't be too damned important. Besides, where the hell would I go?

The drying sweat on my body gave rise to legions of gooseflesh, chilling me to the bone. A scalding shower, a few fingers of whiskey, and then an hour or two lounging in front of a raging fireplace was in serious order. And a heaping bowl of Cap'n Crunch, of course. I padded across the Brazilian maple and into the bathroom.

The water heater didn’t stand a chance, and 45 minutes later I lay plunked on the couch, belly full of cereal in front of a fire that would've given Smokey the Bear a stroke. My Spiderman coffee mug, half full of Jameson Irish whiskey, sat untouched on the end table. I hadn't had the energy to reach for it yet. Behind the protective grate, the oak logs crinkled and occasionally popped with the gusto of a gunshot. I snuggled deep into the folds of the chenille throw my mother had sent to me for Christmas last year and drifted off.

I should probably explain something. There's no damn good reason why I should be alive. Since birth, some 30 odd years ago, I've been plagued with seizure disorder, epilepsy if you like. I don't like, so I call it seizure disorder. Epilepsy sounds too much like leprosy, and despite the fact that that rather unpleasant ailment now only seems to cause trouble in Stephen Donaldson novels, the stigma never really went away. But seizure disorder isn't a walk in the park either. I often think about it: which is worse, leprosy, where society shuns you and your skin sloughs off, or seizure disorder, where you black out, flop around on the ground for a few minutes scaring hell out of your family, and then come to feeling like you've ridden over Niagara Falls in a beer keg? I’d be willing to give leprosy a go.

Medication lessened the severity of the grand mal seizures for a while, but when I was six years old, it stopped working and I suffered anywhere from 20 to 40 seizures a day. The only good thing was that I didn't remember any of them. No such luck for my parents and brothers. My dad had an especially difficult time of it. Imagine a 6'2", 260lb Norwegian farmer staring helplessly as his youngest son is gripped by a never-ending series of violent convulsions. Years later, my mom told me it was the only time she'd ever seen him weep.

Anyway, our family physician referred us to a hospital in Minnesota that specialized in seizure disorders. Tests and doctors and poking and prodding and two weeks later a neurosurgeon, subsequently and passionately referred to by my family as Dr. Dumb Ass, proclaimed he could cure me by excising half my brain. For some silly reason, my parents were a little skeptical. But it's a legitimate procedure called a hemispherectomy and does boast a better than average success rate, and my folks were desperate. They agreed to the operation and I went under the knife. Well, cranial saw.

A few hundred years ago, Robert Burns wrote a poem called To A Mouse. A line in that poem reads, The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. For those whose 18th century Scottish is rusty, this translates into, The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Dr. Dumb Ass cut out the wrong half of my brain.

Yep.

Ridiculous, right? Well, doctors have left surgical instruments inside patients, amputated the healthy instead of diseased limb, and removed kidneys from patients suffering from appendicitis. These too frequent horror stories are well known and the reason why God invented malpractice lawsuits. After they heard the news, my parents got religion in a big goddamned way.

When I turned 21, a trust fund worth over 25 million dollars awaited. Mom and Dad now live on a 20-acre estate outside Boca Raton, Florida. My brothers received full rides to the universities of their choice. Cal chose Princeton, Tom opted for MIT.

Jeremy had been accepted at UC Berkeley...

Given my age at the time of the surgery, the remaining half of my brain adapted, learned the functions previously controlled by the half they removed. By age 11, after years of unbelievably frustrating therapy, I was relatively normal. Strangely, the severity of my seizures abated, but still they came and still they sucked. A very kind doctor at the Mayo Clinic knew of a hospital just outside Interlaken, Switzerland that had been testing experimental anti-seizure treatments and set up an appointment. The upshot of that visit was that my dad found that German beer put his usual Milwaukee's Best to shame, my mom discovered a fondness for cuckoo clocks, and I reined in my seizures. The drugs worked so well that I was even allowed to drive a car. That, of course, turned out to be the mother of all mixed blessings.

I opened my eyes to a dead fireplace. My whole body ached and a grogginess encased my head like a mummy's wrap. I'd had a seizure and slept for three hours.

Son of a bitch.

I sat up with measured slowness, determined to not give the inevitable nausea an excuse to purge the Cap'n Crunch. The mug containing the untouched booze lay on the floor, its contents splattered on the carpet. My right hand stung. I must have whacked it when I started thrashing on the couch. At least it hadn't broken. But to waste fine whiskey like that was criminal.

I gingerly slid my tongue out between my teeth, flicked it from side to side. I hadn't bitten it this time. At least I had that going for me.

The little voice inside my head suggested I dial up 911 and take a ride to the emergency room to get checked out. Just in case.

My little voice doesn't win a lot of arguments.

Muscles screaming, I stood and worked them loose. The agony caused white spots to dance before my eyes. I continued with my after-seizure routine until I no longer wished I were dead. While caffeine is verboten for those with seizure disorder, I always need Mountain Dew afterwards. Either I'll seize again right away, in which case it won't be a surprise, or the caffeine and sugar will wake me all the way up. This time, it woke me up.

Then the inevitable anger and humiliation descended. As illogical as it sounds, even when alone after a seizure, I feel embarrassed. Many years of introspection ultimately led me to conclude that having this affliction somehow makes me less of a man. Damaged goods. The fact that there are millions of people in the world waging daily battles against AIDS, Parkinson's disease, cancer, and other equally debilitating conditions that make my seizure disorder look like a case of poison ivy is not lost on me. I often berate myself for the occasional self-pity. But then I'll have another seizure and the empathy evaporates and the pity party begins. The adage about having no shoes and then meeting a guy with no feet looks nice on paper. Real life application of that wisdom, I've discovered, is rare.

I found four Advil in the kitchen cabinet and washed them down with Dew. I sat down at the breakfast nook, rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, and tried to think of what I had to do today. First, I canceled the afternoon appointment with my broker, which was perfectly okay with me. The guy kept trying to talk me into overseas investments. Emerging markets in southeast Asia were the way to go, he said. Right. Until the next tsunami or civil war.

I finished the pop and dropped the can in the trash on my way back to the living room. Early afternoon sunlight assaulted me through the skylight and reminded me that it was the middle of June and already in the 90s outside. I wondered if my neighbors had noticed the smoke issuing from the chimney and then realized I didn't care. They'd seen weirder things at this house over the years.

On the sofa and under the throw once again, I stared at the cold hearth, fought off a bout of depression, and half-heartedly planned the rest of my day. A danger that accompanies the acquisition of wealth is the tendency toward sloth. I didn't have to work anymore, and some days it was all I could do just to haul my butt out of bed.

I decided I'd call up my friend Del and meet him for a beer later. Wendel Littlefield, a welder by trade and self-described connoisseur of all things hedonistic (actually, his exact words had been, I love pussy, beer, and little white pills that keep me going for days) had been a year behind me at Sioux Valley High School. We'd known each other back then just to nod hello to at parties. In school, our respective cliques prevented any real interaction much less communication. Amazing what we chose to care about back then.

I'd constructed my house over the course of a year and during that period had occasion to engage the services of a welder for certain...modifications. The doors and windows required, in my paranoid opinion, steel panels that slid into place at the touch of button in case of an emergency. Just what that emergency might entail wasn’t clear but it invariably involved zombies. The city wouldn't grant me a permit to dig a moat.

The way I figured it (or rationalized it), my formative years were spent at the mercy of a disorder that robbed me of all control of my own life. Given the capricious nature of the illness, I never knew when the next spell would waylay me. There had been a six-month period when I was 14 where I refused to leave the house altogether for fear I may seize in public. Also in my teen years, an overactive imagination coupled with a new film genre, the slasher movie, augmented this unease. I'd glimpsed a grand total of three minutes of a terrified Jamie Lee Curtis on the run from her psycho-killer brother in Halloween. John Carpenter is not on my Christmas card list. To this day I can't sleep with a window cracked or a door unlocked. I also can't sleep without a weapon of some kind within easy reach, whether it be a hockey stick or pistol. I like to think of myself as circumspect, prepared for any contingency. Did I honestly believe a knife-wielding maniac would go through the trouble of breaking into my home just to carve me up? Not really. But the fact that there was a chance, however infinitesimal, fueled my, um, ...caution.

Anyway, Del had been the welder my contractor hired for the job. A few days into the modifications, I'd offered him a beer and we shot the shit. It hadn't taken us long to figure out who we each were and thus began the stumble down memory lane. He remembered me as a bit of a preppy snob and I told him I'd thought of him as a party animal with the morals of three-legged crocodile. He laughed at that. I'd forgotten about his laugh: a goose-caught-in-the-gears-of-a-combine squawk that could scare off pit bulls. He admitted he hadn't changed much. Still the convivial letch who partied hardy and loved the ladies down at the local roadhouse. We had absolutely nothing in common, would never in a million years have chosen each other for a friend, but that day, for whatever cosmic reason, a friendship bloomed. He cared not a whit that I was gay or rich. And I cared not a whit that he was a banal, perpetually broke heterosexual. Even though I was Monty Python to his Blue Collar Comedy Tour, we got on well, neither feeling the need to impress the other, and just enjoyed being ourselves around another human being.

After he'd finished the job, we'd still meet occasionally to shoot pool, grab a brew, or whatever. He'd jokingly called me Boss while working on my house and kept it up afterwards. It bugged the crap out of me so of course it stuck.

I showered again, slipped into jeans and a black T-shirt, and headed out to meet Del at a little country dive called The Two Step. At 8:00 PM the sun still hung well above the horizon and the air still held the day's crushing heat and humidity. As I maneuvered my Jaguar XJS through the city's light traffic, the inexplicable compulsion to hit the open road and not look back struck again. Gotta go, gotta go.

Jeez. What’s that all about, I wondered. Never in my life had I experienced wanderlust. Sure, I'd traveled the world, visited all the tourist traps from the Alamo to Zimbabwe, but had always done so after meticulous planning and never alone. To just...take off for parts unknown smacked of insanity, so this aberrant urge did not compute. Actually, it scared me a little bit. The voice in the back of my head made spooky Twilight Zone sounds.

Only six cars sat in the parking lot of The Two Step, including Del's 1977 Camaro. Rust had nibbled at its wheel wells and recently began to feast upon the door panels. The Jag's doors locked with a chirp and a flash and I walked toward the bar and grill. I reached for the handle but before I could open the door, I caught something odd in my peripheral vision. I turned. A man, I figured him for a basketball player as he went at least seven feet, stood stock still under the green awning of Virgil's Flower Hut across the street. And he was staring directly at me.

Hairs on the back of my neck raised slightly and my stomach flipped over once. His clothes were weird but I couldn't really say why. Distance and shadow conspired against me. Then he lifted his right arm and pointed at the dipping sun. There was an intensity about the way he did it, the rigidity of the bony white arm, the ruler straightness of the index finger. He wasn't pointing at the sun, I realized, or at any specific object. It was a command for me to go. To go west. What...?

I glanced around for someone else who may find this scene out of the ordinary, someone who would say, You see that? What's that guy doing over there? What's he pointing at, you suppose? But there was no one. When I returned my gaze to the awning, he had disappeared. He couldn't have moved without me noticing. Where the hell did he go? And why was I a little freaked out? Another quick and ultimately pointless survey of the area confirmed that I was indeed alone.

Hmm.

So a guy looks at me and points. For some reason he thinks I should go west. Dude's probably high or nuts or otherwise mentally impaired. What's the big deal? The deal, my little voice whispered, is that it is a big deal so pay attention. Remember what happened this morning? The nightmare, the urge to go (west maybe?), and a seizure. Signs? Omens? Harbingers of worse things to come?

Screw it, I thought, I need a shot and a beer.

Bar odors assailed me as I plunged into the gloom of The Two Step: spilled beer, stale cigarettes, cheap perfume and just a hint of vomit. A good-looking college kid washing glasses behind the bar nodded at me. I found Del sitting at a table in back, knocking back a tall one and making time with a redheaded waitress who was built like Mae West. He spotted me and waved. The waitress frowned at the intrusion and huffed her way back to the bar to fill my order.

Hey, Boss, Del said with a wink and a grin. How's it hanging?

Fine. Just fine, I said. Well, no. Not really. I sighed as I sat. I'm having an abnormal day, Del.

Yeah? You have normal days?

Funny.

My beer and whiskey arrived. She practically slammed them down onto the table. The beer sloshed over the rim and soaked her hand. She cursed under her breath, glared at me, and stomped away.

Del stared after her, a puzzled expression on his face. You do have a way with women, don't you? he remarked.

I grunted and drained the shot glass in one go. The burn was good.

So what's abnormal about your day? Del asked.

I recounted what had happened after I awoke from the nightmare but left out the details of the dream. No one knows the specifics of the accident but me. And if I can help it, no one ever will.

Del sipped his beer and mulled it over for a few minutes. I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one up. The nicotine hit washed over me like a warm ocean wave. I closed my eyes and rode that breaker until Del spoke up.

Why west, you think?

This is what you ask?

His eyes squinted in confusion. Well, sure. The other stuff already happened. Done and gone. Can't do much about it, can you? I figure the most important thing is what's next. No?

The logic of my friend Del. I liked it.

Okay. Leaving the Jolly Pale Giant out of it as well as the bad vibes I've had today, I have no idea why west. But you know, it does feel right. And it did. More than right, it felt...imperative.

So let's go west, he said.

I blinked. Huh?

Sure. I can take some time off, and it's not like you have to punch a time clock.

And go where?

He shrugged. Dunno. We could think of it as a road trip. Just drive. What's that expression? Go where the wind blows us?

That's pretty profound, Del, I said wryly.

I'm a profound guy, Boss, he deadpanned and drained his beer.

I thought it over and could not come up with a convincing argument against it. But still. Who does that?

I said, So what, are we pioneers now? Trekking west to claim 40 acres on the windswept prairies of Dakota Territory?

Westward ho! Del exclaimed, pumping his arm in the air.

I tried mightily not to, but I ended up grinning like a moron at my friend's enthusiasm. Why not? Maybe that's exactly what I needed right now. Get out of town for a few days, soak up some local culture.

Del leaned forward, talking excitedly. The way I figure it, we'll make a game out of it. You know, see how many bars in as many different towns we can hit each day. What do you suppose the record for something like that is? Twenty? Thirty?

I shook my head but couldn't shake the grin. Who knows, I thought, maybe it would be fun.

The little voice in the back of my head remained ominously silent.

*****

CHAPTER TWO

The Porta-John's last occupant must have eaten cabbage and dead mice for lunch, Seth thought with a scrunched up nose as he swabbed the blue plastic floor and black toilet seat. He'd empty the receptacles next and that would not be a pretty thing. The feces and urine didn't bother him so much as did the vomit and those...female things. Basic human functions, basic human ickiness. Heck, even the Pope has to have a sit-down once in a while, he supposed. Otherwise...immaculate constipation. He chuckled at his own bad joke and then hosed down the urinal with bleach.

The Indian Creek Campground in Yellowstone National Park did not usually include portable toilets. It offered merely a pit toilet. But an unexpected tourist boon precipitated by an uncommonly mild spring forced the necessity, and while bears may be allowed to do their business in the woods, the human visitors were not. Indian Creek opened on June 7th. Fifty-eight of the 75 sites were already occupied and it was only June 19th.

As luck of the draw had it, the unenviable task of maintaining these noxious boxes fell on Seth's shoulders. He'd shrugged those narrow shoulders when Barb Brubaker, the facilities manager, announced the assignments on his second day. No problem, he'd replied with a lopsided grin.

Seth remembered Barb eyeing him suspiciously and saying, No problem, huh? Just like that? That's too easy. To which he had replied, Life's too short for it not to be.

They'd liked each other almost immediately. Almost.

On orientation day, however, she'd pretty much scared the bejeezus out of all the new hires, Seth included. You are not here to look at the pretty trees and mountains! she'd bellowed like a Marine Corps drill sergeant. You are not here to get back to nature and find your inner child! You are here to work and I will see to it that you do so! Five from the group of 30 campsite assistants quit that day. Those who remained thought up a nickname for their new boss: Barbarella Ballbreaker. This amused Seth to no end. Barb, not so much.

Seth heaved the last of the four receptacles into the bed of the Park Service pickup truck, its lumpy contents sloshing about within the white plastic cube. The sound and subsequent images it conjured were nearly as bad as the smell.

A squirrel perched on a nearby tree trunk munched on a pilfered pretzel and eyed him warily.

You should watch your sodium intake, brother. I hear high blood pressure is the leading cause of death among your people, Seth said and slammed the tailgate closed.

The animal flicked its tail twice and bounded off into the heart of the campground, no doubt to stalk and pillage more snack food.

The young man stretched and adjusted his sable ponytail. For the hundredth time that day he considered snipping it off, or at least trimming it back five or six inches. The thing was a heat magnet. A two-week old memory of bagging groceries in the air-conditioned Food Mart back home in Cut Bank, Montana flitted across his mind.

The owner of the grocery store, Mr. Jumping Crow, must have been part Eskimo as he kept his store positively frigid. At the time, Seth was more than glad for his ebon locks. They kept his neck warm. What was embarrassing though, was that everyone commented on his hair. Girls ooed and awed at its body and almost blue sheen while the guys grudgingly agreed that it was pretty cool. The attention was thanks in part to his grandmother, who had forbidden her daughter to cut it after the boy had turned twelve.

The old, loopy woman still spoke the language of their people, Blackfoot, and had inexplicably pronounced his hair sacred. Seth remembered she had then lit her pipe after this declaration and resumed snapping green beans on the front porch, pointedly ignoring his mother's vain attempts at negotiation. Unlike most modern American families, Native Americans respected the wisdom of their elders, even though they may question their logic. The result was that now, Seth's raven ponytail hung just above his waistline.

With a puckish grin, he raised his arms above his head toward the heavens.

I am Samson! he said in his best Charleton Heston voice. My mighty strength flows from this sacred hair and I shall smite all who stand against me! Seth snarled dramatically and whirled around to survey his kingdom only to come face-to-face with...

If you're about tell me I'm Delilah, I may have to whoop your skinny little butt, Barbarella Ballbreaker said flatly.

Barbara Brubaker hailed from New York and was built like a bulldog. She stood 5'5", went at least 150lbs (not one ounce fat), wore her dyed blond hair cropped short and never, ever applied a speck of cosmetics to her milk chocolate skin. The severe creases in her uniform were sharp enough to slice bread. Her considerable bosom, however, betrayed her attempt at military perfection. But if any coworker was guilty of straying eyes or lewd thoughts, the crazy rumors put a stop to it right quick. They didn't want to find out the hard way if she'd live up to her new nickname. Seth's favorite story was the one where Barb rescued a family of terrified Japanese campers from a rabid grizzly bear. As it goes, Barb had leapt upon its back and locked on a sleeper hold until the beast passed out. Her heroic actions were rewarded with tepid sake and much bowing.

Oh, uh, hey there, Barb, Seth said sheepishly, lowering his arms and suddenly finding no place to put them. I was just, uh, well...

She stuck her arm out like a traffic cop. Don't even try, Longhair. The job gets done, you can be Mary Queen of Scots for all I care.

How about Helen of Troy? Always thought she had more panache.

Barb shook her head, tried to swallow a grin, said, Why did I ever hire you?

Seth replied seriously, Well, with the way you've been eyeing my ponytail, I figure you're waiting for your chance to cut it off and sell it on eBay.

She laughed out loud, a booming, good-natured laugh that belied her intimidating exterior. Several prairie dogs nibbling grass alongside the access road fled in terror.

You know, she remarked, if one of us wasn't gay, I think the other would be in trouble.

He blushed and suddenly found the tops of his dusty boots very fascinating. While Seth liked her, he had yet to grow accustomed to her disturbing habit of speaking her mind.

Ease up, Longhair. I forget you're the sensitive type. She looked at him askance and added, Like you'd get some anyway.

At that, Seth couldn't help but laugh himself.

They stood at the entrance to the campground. The individual camping sites were arrayed along a graveled road that ran a drunken figure eight around Indian Creek. Even though the highway lay a mile to the south, Seth could still hear the cars and motor homes zipping by. And despite the lack of electricity, laundry or shower facilities, a portion of those travelers would no doubt find their way here. A summer rife with backbreaking labor, unruly tourists, and dangerous wildlife only served to fuel Seth's adventuresome spirit. He didn't think his life could get much better.

He couldn't know his life was about to become very complicated.

If you're done here, I thought you could help me inspect the mud pots and springs down at the Biscuit and Black Sand Basins. She doffed her sunglasses and wiped the lenses with a white handkerchief. Maybe we'll have enough time to get a peek at the old girl herself.

Really? Old Faithful? Seth lit up like an eight-year old on Christmas morning. He'd planned on visiting the world's most famous geyser when (and if) he got a day off.

Really. I didn't think you'd mind waiting till tomorrow to fish the condoms and beer cans out of Panther Creek.

I don't know, he replied dryly, that's the kind of fun money can't buy.

Go on, finish up the poop patrol and meet me back at the House. We'll leave in about an hour.

All right! Seth exclaimed and bolted for his truck.

Barb grinned broadly and ambled back to her Jeep. A minute later, a billowing dust trail was all that remained of the pickup and Seth. Why she let this ingenuous kid affect her so was a mystery.

She'd worked at Yellowstone four years without fraternizing with the campground assistants, without allowing a friendship to take root. Which is exactly how she wanted it after what happened back east. Back in New York. She did not want to get burned again.

A glint to her left caught her eye. She stiffened and marched over to the Indian Creek Campground sign on the side of the driveway opposite the toilets. The sign had been crafted to blend with its surroundings, so the foil candy wrapper atop one of the two log posts was markedly out of place. She grimaced and snatched it off, casting her gaze about for a suspect. Lack of basic common courtesy rankled her. If the guilty camper were to answer honestly, she'd bet he didn't leave garbage lying around his own house.

The Jeep rumbled to life and Barb slipped it into first gear. Before releasing the clutch, she took one last look around. Her line of sight into the campground stopped at twenty feet thanks to the dense stand of Douglas-firs and lodgepole pines. She saw and heard nothing except for a squirrel squatting on a tree stump nibbling a potato chip. It was almost as if all the humans had been devoured by the forest.

She popped the clutch and the Jeep shot toward the employee lodge. With Seth gone, her previous ease evaporated and the past bullied its way into her thoughts. Miserable in Manhattan. Jeez, she thought sourly, sounds like a Dear Abby letter.

Born in Flatbush to a junkie mother and reared in Hell's Kitchen by an imperious father, she'd learned self-reliance early. With Mom dead and Dad an unexploded time bomb, Barb turned inward and found comfort in keeping her own company. Given the rough-and-tumble exterior she consciously displayed, not many people bothered to forge friendships. This suited her just fine. She landed a waitressing gig and even managed to find an apartment she could afford. The day after she'd moved in, her drunken father held up a liquor store and was shot dead by the Korean proprietor. On her own and answerable to no one, Barb finally began to know peace for the first time in 28 years. Her safe and solitary lifestyle, however, collapsed when she fell for Chloe Pitterer, drummer for the punk-rock band Gooch. The love may have been lust but the crash and burn six months later hurt just the same. Fickle and bisexual Chloe had decided to switch back to men.

A dead man once said it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Barb would wager a year's pay this guy married his high school sweetheart and lived happily ever after.

An ad in the Times for summer work in Yellowstone National Park and a bus ticket to Mammoth, Wyoming took Barb out of the Big Apple and into the second chapter of her life.

And just when she'd grown comfortable with her new lifestyle, an odd, 22 year-old Blackfoot Indian came along and weaseled his way through the armor she had meticulously woven around herself. He had something; a magnetic contentment with himself and life a man his age had no business having. She'd known gang-bangers and even a few wise guys who weren't as self-possessed as Seth. But there was also his childlike wonder that Barb envied and maybe even coveted. Experiencing through him what was now routine for her rekindled some of the feelings of awe she'd had four years ago when she herself was a campground assistant. This longhaired Indian relished, even savored life, and she couldn't help but tag along on his magic carpet ride.

An hour later, they were driving south on Grand Loop Road, the oval-shaped highway that connected the park's major attractions and campgrounds. The sun was high and warm on Barb's face. The Jeep's tires sang a 50 mile-an-hour song, the wind a pleasant roar in her ears. When she'd suggested removing the top, Seth had flashed an impish grin. Now she knew why. The goofball had removed the four elastic bands that held his ponytail together. His hair fluttered behind him like a sleek, black contrail. She thought if his smile grew any wider his face would split apart.

I thought Indians usually braided their hair, she observed, having no problem talking over the wind.

I did once, he replied, having to raise his voice considerably. But every time I turned around too fast, I'd give the person standing next to me a black eye. It was as thick as a python and positively lethal.

He lifted his arms above his head like he was riding a roller coaster.

And I thought black women wore those dreadlock things, he remarked after a few minutes.

Did once. Frightened too many of the neighborhood kids. Only Whoopi can pull off that look. Besides, she added, pushing her sliding sunglasses back up, I'm a low maintenance kind of gal.

They entered a region of the park ravaged by fire many years ago. Charred skeletons of trees once alive and majestic replaced the pine, spruce, and fir that had lined either side of the highway and marched up the slopes into the higher elevations. The earth here was still gray with ash and cluttered with the splintered remains of fallen limbs. No birds nested in the arms of these dead husks, no chipmunks frolicked amidst the char, and no flower lifted its bloom to greet the morning sun. The dearth of life was almost a presence in and of itself.

Seth shivered uncontrollably in response to the apocalyptic landscape. He lowered his arms and hugged himself despite the 80º day.

It's all wrong, he thought abruptly. All wrong.

The effects of a forest fire weren't wrong. The occasional fire was actually healthy for the environment as it cleared away the detritus and allowed for new, fecund growth. No, it wasn't that. It had nothing to do with trees or wildlife or Yellowstone at all.

It was bigger. As big as the world.

Seth? Earth to Seth. Where'd you go there? Barb alternated her gaze between the road and him. I know it can be disturbing to see, but...

No. It's not that.

"What, then? It's like someone flipped a switch inside you. You went from happy-go-lucky-enjoying-the-day, to