Wear that black velvet dress, he begged her on the telephone, with the lacy trim. Henry don’t be silly, she replied….

At five o’clock, official quitting time, on the day before the tryst, Henry retired to his plywood ranger hut among the juniper trees, stripped off his sweat-soaked uniform and took a shower. Not in the little trailerhouse, a cramped bug-infested sweatbox with apologetic plumbing, but out back on the rock, in the sun, with two buckets of water, one soapy one clear. He bathed in the soapy bucket and poured the contents of the other over his shaggy head. Shivering with cold goosebumps, at a temperature of 102ºF, as a fiery breeze swept down from the rosy, infernal cliffs. The humidity was 6 percent.

He dressed in his sportiest Dacron slacks and loudest Hawaiian shirt, filled his canvas waterbag and hung it on the front bumper of his pickup, loaded buckets, bedroll and cooking gear in bed of truck, tossed in a rag satchel with clean shirt and underwear, toothbrush and razor and comb, locked up his trailer and bolted off like a rabbit for the highway, ten miles away by sand and stone. He paused in Moab for oil, gasoline and beer, then headed northeast up the river road through the gorge past Nigger Bill Canyon, La Sal Creek, Castle Valley, Professor Valley, Onion Creek, Fisher Towers. Flaming with joy, fear, intolerable anticipation, he rumbled—engine faltering—over the Colorado River on the half-century-old one-lane Dewey Bridge. Stopped to fill a bucket and add water to his leaky radiator. Scalding his fingers in the steam. Draped a wet rag over the carburetor to soothe the vapor lock. And waited, walking irritably back and forth in the shade of the cottonwood trees on the riverbank, switching impatiently at the heads of dried cheatgrass with his agave walking stick. Returned to his vehicle, added a quart of reprocessed oil and slammed down the hood, securing it to the grille with the leather latigo that hung from the hood ornament.

Henry drove on, passed the mouth of the Dolores (Sorrows) River, forded a stream that came down from the Roan Cliffs on the north, and entered the ghost slum of Cisco. From there it was but a mile to the paved highway—US 6-50—and an easy roll over the lonely lovely desert to the riverside Mormon towns of Mack, Loma, Fruita and Grand Junction. Only ninety-one miles to Glenwood Springs. And 7:30 P.M.: only fifteen hours before her scheduled arrival.

Air cooling, engine cooling, sun well down behind him, he motored on through Palisade, De Beque, Rulison, Rifle, Antlers and Silt, following the river as the highway did, and entered the fine old resort town of Glenwood Springs. An odor of therapeutic sulfur floated from the baths and through the streets. Henry made sure, first of all, that he could find the railway station and passenger depot. Not hard. The railroad, like the highway, paralleled the river. Anything of any importance in Glenwood Springs ran along the river. He found another clock. He had thirteen hours to wait but at least he was here. Not there. He walked about the streets still flustered a bit from the six cans of beer he’d absorbed during the drive up from Moab but taking care not to attract the eye of the city police. This would be the wrong night to spend in a drunk tank.