The massive legs of the table buckled and exploded in splinters. They could not withstand the weight of tons of cement and steel and stone.

Chapter 71

71

Quaint, Edward thought; quaint and touching and he wished he could muster up the emotion to join them; a group of twenty or more had gathered by now in a circle a hundred yards behind the Granite Point, singing hymns and more folk songs. Betsy clung to him on the asphalt path. Fresh tremors had subsided, but the air itself seemed to be grumbling, complaining.

Ironically, having climbed the trail to have a good vantage, they now stood well back from the rim. A foot-wide crack had appeared in the terrace stonework. From where they stood, they could see only the upper third of the opposite wall of the valley.

"You're a geologist," Betsy said, massaging his neck with one hand, something he had not asked her to do, but which felt good. "Do you know what's going on?"

"No," he said.

"It's not just an earthquake, though?"

"I don't think so."

"So it's beginning now. We just got up here."

He nodded and swallowed back a lump of fear. Now that it had come, he was near panic. He felt trapped, claustrophobic, with only all of the Earth and sky to move in—not even that, lacking wings. He felt squeezed between steel plates of gravity and his own puny weakness. His body was forcibly reminding him that fear was difficult to control, and presence of mind in the face of death was rare.

"God," Betsy said, placing her cheek against his, looking toward the Point. She was shaking, too. "I thought at least we'd have time to talk about it, sit around a campfire ..."

Edward held her more tightly. He imagined her as a wife, and then thought of Stella, marveling at the fickleness of his fantasies; he was grasping for many lives, now that his own seemed so short. Over his fear he thought of long years together with both of them.

The tremors had almost passed.

The hymn singers continued searching for a common key, hopelessly lost. Minelli and Inez came from the trees and climbed the hill between the close switchbacks of the asphalt path. Minelli whooped out loud and ran his hand through his hair. "Jesus, isn't adrenaline great?"

"He's crazy," Inez said, breathing hard, her face pale. "Maybe not the craziest I've met, but close."

"Does it feel warmer to you?" Betsy asked.

Edward considered that possibility. Would heat transmit itself before a shock wave? No. If the bullets were colliding, or had collided only a short time ago, deep in the center of the Earth, the expanding and irresistible plasma of their mutual destruction would crack the Earth wide before heat could ever reach the surface.