We're down and nearly out, Edward thought. The whole planet feels like the four of us did at Vandenberg. What does it matter if we take a small chunk out of them?

He bought the books and quickly left the mall.

On California state highway 41, driving north, passing a car perhaps every five minutes, he nodded his head and clenched his jaw, suddenly realizing why he had made the Pinedale stop. The books were of course superfluous; he had gone there to say good-bye to part of his culture.

If this is going to be an extended wake, he thought, might as well say my farewells to everybody.

Edward followed 41 into the park and took the long, winding drive along a nearly empty Wawona Road, the shadow of Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines crossing his windshield. It was four o'clock and the cool, sweet, green-scented air came through his half-opened side window with strobing warm bursts of sun between stands of trees. Large patches of snow dripped by the roadside, edges round and glittering.

The Wawona tunnel opened onto Inspiration Point and a view of the length of the valley. He parked the RV in the small paved lot, three spaces over from a lone unoccupied car. Climbing down, savoring the moment, he walked to the edge and stood by the railing, hands in pockets, a silly grin on his face.

I'm a kid again.

This is what he remembered most clearly—the valley floor, green with thick pine growth, and in western shadow, the Merced River reflecting snake curves of clear blue sky. Bridal Veil Falls cut its famous brilliant white arc and died in foggy spray against the rocks below. Above the falls, the Cathedral Rocks framed granite monstrosities beyond. On the left, the face of El Capitan glowered gray and pure, dominating the valley from this perspective.

Over twenty years ago, I wondered what it would be like to wander through a mass made of that much granite. There are places inside no one has seen ever, a vast space of solid rock, silent and still, frozen.

Beyond and behind El Capitan rose the Three Brothers and North Dome, from this angle a simple superfluity of rock capped with snow, sure to assume their proper characters when seen from below. Almost on a par with the white peak of Clouds Rest, and above the lower of the Cathedral Rocks, was the calm, bright-faced assertion of Half Dome.

The cold wind drove up the valley and whipped Edward's hair. I'm not dreaming. By God, I'm finally here, and this isn't a dream. He felt compelled to make sure and kicked his boot lightly against a post rail.

For more than twenty years, in his dreams, this had been the place of his greatest happiness, his peace. Nowhere else had he ever felt quite so much at ease, he thought; and his almost monthly returns in sleep to this valley, these monoliths, kept reminding him of what he had lost.