“Stay here, both of you. Take a summer off.”

Ballantine smiles. “Can’t do it, man. Can’t do it.”

“You owe it to yourself, Art. I think you’ve earned it, Art.”

“He mocks me. He jests at my burdens. Why don’t you come with us?”

“I can’t leave the job.”

“Job? You call this a job? This Boy Scout stuff?”

“Someone’s got to do it.”

“So. But why you?”

He makes no reply. Ballantine waits. Tries again.

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here?”

No reply.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing here? What do you really want to do anyway?”

“Really want to do,” Gatlin repeats softly, still gazing out over the forest. Toward the desert. A pause. “Stare at the sun,” he says.

“What?”

“Stare it down.”

Ballantine sighs. “Will, you’re crazy.”

“Stare it out,” says Gatlin, smiling. “Stand on this tower and stare at the sun until the sun goes…black.”

“Let’s get out of here. You need a drink. No, I need a drink. We all need a drink. I’m sorry I asked.”

They descend the tower. They walk down the darkening pathway. The deer watch, the mule ears alert; in silhouette they look like giant hares. Down the trail, under the breathing and whispering trees, through a grove of crooked aspen in a green-gold fading light. The hermit thrush. Two men walking beneath the glowing and heartbreaking sky, where mountainous clouds drift against the wheeling spokes of evening, toward the evening star. One talking.

His arm on Gatlin’s shoulders, Ballantine speaks of love. A two-time loser, he speaks of marriage. A doctor of philosophy, he speaks of duty, honor, obligation and the world. He speaks of choice, of decision, of creation and significance. Of purpose and meaning. Of happiness. Of joy.

Gatlin swings his stick. He stops for a moment, pointing at something deep in the shadows among the trees.

“What?” Ballantine stares. “Yes? What is it, Will?”

Gatlin points.

“What do you see, Will?”

SAW HER smiling reflection rise beside his. The sunlight shone through her hair. He felt her hands move up his back, onto his shoulders, into his hair.

She started to laugh, and with the sudden strength that always surprised him she pushed his head down, into the water. And ran away, laughing, towards the aspen trees, through the silken knee-high green rice grass. Those slim brown legs, bare beneath the short kilt, flashing through the shining grass. Her long hair, gleaming like copper, streamed out behind her.

He pounded after her but she ran like a startled doe, quick with life, sprang over a log and was into the trees before he even began to gain on her. In the green gloom she raced before him, laughing. He yelled, she looked back, veered to one side, then the other. Each time she changed direction he crossed the angle of her course and closed the gap. She collapsed suddenly on the edge of another grassy place, a small and sunlit opening deep in the forest. He sprawled upon her.