The Lonely Polygamist Part 18

Of course, Rusty didn't have twenty-five cents, so when the codger was distracted by a crazy-eyed hag who claimed there was no way in s.h.i.+nola she was going to pay good American coin for a plastic spatula with a crack in it and the codger responded by picking up the sign and jabbing at each word with his finger as if he were leading a bunch of preschoolers in a sing-along, Rusty swiped the book off the edge of the table and stuffed it down his pants.

He had meant to give it to his mother for her birthday, but he started reading it and before you knew it his mother's birthday had pa.s.sed. Sir Nigel Mountcastle and Lady Jane Wels.h.i.+ngham were secretly in love, even though she was married to the Earl of Buckington, who was away most of the time hunting pygmies in the jungles of Siam. Even though Sir Nigel was kind of an a-hole, and the book was confusing, with words Rusty didn't understand and people saying things like, "Unhand the marchioness this instant!" it was easily the best book he'd ever read.

Rusty had stolen the book for his mother because he knew about her secret; not only did his mother read books like To Love a Scoundrel To Love a Scoundrel but she had a collection of them hidden in her closet. Rusty discovered this one Sunday last summer when he claimed he was sick so he didn't have to go to church, and while he was home alone and had nothing better to do he went snooping around in her bedroom, where he found dozens of these books, the kind with half-naked ladies and long-haired muscle-guys wrestling each other on the covers-a couple under her bed, a lot more stacked up behind clothes in her closet, one in her nightstand drawer under the Book of Mormon. but she had a collection of them hidden in her closet. Rusty discovered this one Sunday last summer when he claimed he was sick so he didn't have to go to church, and while he was home alone and had nothing better to do he went snooping around in her bedroom, where he found dozens of these books, the kind with half-naked ladies and long-haired muscle-guys wrestling each other on the covers-a couple under her bed, a lot more stacked up behind clothes in her closet, one in her nightstand drawer under the Book of Mormon. Comanche Bride Comanche Bride, and A Stranger Comes Calling, A Cowboy of My Own, The Impostress, Slightly Married, The Damsel in This Dress A Stranger Comes Calling, A Cowboy of My Own, The Impostress, Slightly Married, The Damsel in This Dress. The first time he saw these books, he was scared. He picked up the first one-Tropical Fever, with a picture of a pirate trying to mount a hula chick-and whispered, "Oh my holy fudge fudge." These were his mother's? His mother, who never cussed, who blushed when the old fart on PBS said social intercourse social intercourse, who hated nakedness so much she duct-taped Ferris's clothes to keep him from streaking, who clapped her hands over her eyes and screamed homicidal murder when she saw Cooter trying to impregnate the neighbor's old blind cat, Mr. Sugar? Though Rusty was feeling weak from looking at all these ladies and their gigantic bosoms, it made him a little sick to think about his mother looking at them too.

But after reading To Love a Scoundrel To Love a Scoundrel he thought maybe he understood. His mother read these books because she wanted to be like Lady Jane Wels.h.i.+ngham or Pollyanna Dansforth or the Comanche Bride, ladies who were beautiful and had adventures and boyfriends who loved them and only them, guys like Sir Nigel Mountcastle, who was ravis.h.i.+ng and said things like, "Oh, Jane, you possess me, you enrapture my very soul." As far as Rusty could tell, none of the ladies in these books had seven children and had to share a husband with three others, the husband being a Sasquatch who smelled like Ben-Gay and stumbled around blinking like he didn't know where he was, who was never around, who paid almost no attention at all to Rose-of-Sharon Richards, his very own wife. he thought maybe he understood. His mother read these books because she wanted to be like Lady Jane Wels.h.i.+ngham or Pollyanna Dansforth or the Comanche Bride, ladies who were beautiful and had adventures and boyfriends who loved them and only them, guys like Sir Nigel Mountcastle, who was ravis.h.i.+ng and said things like, "Oh, Jane, you possess me, you enrapture my very soul." As far as Rusty could tell, none of the ladies in these books had seven children and had to share a husband with three others, the husband being a Sasquatch who smelled like Ben-Gay and stumbled around blinking like he didn't know where he was, who was never around, who paid almost no attention at all to Rose-of-Sharon Richards, his very own wife.

It took him a while, but in his studies of all those books Rusty figured out another of his mother's secrets. She had named her children after people in the books. The mothers got to name their own children-this was one area where they could do what they wanted and n.o.body, not even Sasquatch, had a say-and while the other mothers were going around naming their kids after Book of Mormon prophets and historical people from olden times, Rose-of-Sharon named hers after the beautiful newspaper reporter in Scoop of a Lifetime Scoop of a Lifetime or the secretly lonely millionaire in or the secretly lonely millionaire in A Gentleman in My Bedroom A Gentleman in My Bedroom. Rusty was named after Deputy Marshal Rusty McCready in Ride the Fire Ride the Fire, which was kind of a gyp, because Gale got to be named after some kind of wizardess of Nature who controlled the wind, and Ferris was an Irish warrior with a braided red beard who went around smas.h.i.+ng people's brains in with a stone club.

Before he went to see his mother, to give her his gift and convince her once and for all that it was time for him to come home, that he could repent and act like a normal righteous person if only she would let him come home and have his party at Skate Palace, he had to really quick read his favorite part, where Sir Nigel and Lady Jane get locked up in the dungeon by the Earl of Buckington and escape by covering each other with lamp oil and squeezing through bars. He boosted her up and stood back for a moment to admire her plush and glistening bottom clamped tight between two rusty iron rods He boosted her up and stood back for a moment to admire her plush and glistening bottom clamped tight between two rusty iron rods.

Rusty sighed and shut the book. He counted to ten to allow his pants to settle. When he got out into the hall Herschel said, "Where's my dollar?"

Rusty reached into his pocket, and pretended to put something in Herschel's sweaty palm.

"What's that?" said Herschel.

"An invisible dollar," Rusty said. "Don't lose it or you might not be able to find it again."

At his mother's bedroom door he made a little knock. "Mom?" He thought he heard her say something, so he let himself in.

The room was dark, the drapes glowing at the edges, and the mirror on top of the dresser s.h.i.+mmering next to the big block of blackness that was his mother's bed. At first he was sure she wasn't there, but then he heard breathing and took a step closer.

His mother was on the bed, half under the covers, asleep. And here was the thing: she was wearing her earm.u.f.fs. Blue plastic earm.u.f.fs, like the ones guys on aircraft carriers wear to keep their eardrums from breaking. Which meant things were bad. Which meant his mother had given up, she was sick, she couldn't take it anymore.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. They said they had sent him away to Old House for the Family Exchange Program, but he knew it was really because he was a troublemaker who needed to learn how to behave, because he was a pain in everyone's b.u.t.t, especially his mother's, who had a fragile psychology and needed her rest. But here she was hiding in her room with her earm.u.f.fs on, which meant it hadn't worked. Even with him out of her hair, he was still causing trouble, plus his father was still gone all the time, the mothers were still fighting, which meant the kids fought even more, and his mother couldn't stand it, she just wanted everyone to be good and love each other, which definitely wasn't happening, so she stayed up here in her room, trying to disappear.

He took a few steps back. "Mom?" he said. "Mom?" He nudged the mattress with his knee.

She lifted her head and blinked. "What happened?"

He said, "It's me."

"Who?" She pulled a m.u.f.f off one ear.

"Rusty." He reached out to touch her foot under the covers, pulled his hand back. "I came here to give you something."

"What are you doing?"

"I brought you something."

"You can't be here. You can't. I'm sorry about your party but there's nothing I can do."

All he wanted to do was lie down next to her; if he could just lie down next to her for a second it would be all right. When he was little, she used to let him crawl into bed with her and put his face into her neck, which smelled like Dove soap, and sing "Eidelweiss" and "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." But now he was older and sort of fat, his leg was always jiggling and his feet smelled like old hamburger. He wanted to ask her if she wouldn't mind if he lay down with her for a few seconds, just one second, but the only thing he could say was, "Skate Palace."

She turned her face away. "I tried. I'm sick. I can't do it anymore. Please leave me alone now."

"I came to give give you something," he whined. He didn't want to whine. He didn't want to think about how his special birthday was going down the tubes, or about his mother being sick again like this might ruin all of his plans forever. If he could learn to control himself and behave, then maybe his Grand Master Plan wouldn't be in very serious trouble, and his mother wouldn't be getting sick again. He had figured that if he could get June fixing Aunt Trish's toilet and roof, then June could start doing some of the work around Big House and Old House that Sasquatch wasn't around to do, and that way June and his mother could meet, and of course fall secretly in love, just like in one of his mother's books, and then Rusty and his mother and his new stepdad June Haymaker could go live in a bomb shelter, happily ever after. If it were one of his mother's books it would have a cool t.i.tle like you something," he whined. He didn't want to whine. He didn't want to think about how his special birthday was going down the tubes, or about his mother being sick again like this might ruin all of his plans forever. If he could learn to control himself and behave, then maybe his Grand Master Plan wouldn't be in very serious trouble, and his mother wouldn't be getting sick again. He had figured that if he could get June fixing Aunt Trish's toilet and roof, then June could start doing some of the work around Big House and Old House that Sasquatch wasn't around to do, and that way June and his mother could meet, and of course fall secretly in love, just like in one of his mother's books, and then Rusty and his mother and his new stepdad June Haymaker could go live in a bomb shelter, happily ever after. If it were one of his mother's books it would have a cool t.i.tle like Atomic Love Bombs Atomic Love Bombs or maybe or maybe World War l.u.s.t World War l.u.s.t, and it would feature Rose-of-Sharon, the sad and overlooked housewife who only needed a sensitive and semi-handsome stranger with a bomb shelter to bring out her inner beauty, and once the stranger whisked Rose-of-Sharon away to the bomb shelter, along with her clever and brave son Rusty, who she could not bear to leave behind, World War III would come and blow the living c.r.a.p out of civilization as they knew it. Except before the bombs crashed down, Rusty, with his extra-perception abilities, would detect the sound of the missiles coming on their way over Greenland and he would jump on his bike and pedal like a madman to Aunt Trish's house, where he would find Aunt Trish doing some gardening in cut-offs and some kind of tight top that made her b.o.o.bs stand out, and he would tell her the end of the world was at hand and if she wanted to live she better hop on the back of his bike p.r.o.nto. She would say, "What about Faye?" and he would hold out his hand and say, "I'm sorry, but there's no time," and she would take his hand and hop on the bike and hold him tight around the waist with her chin on his shoulder as the missiles screamed overhead, and they would make it to the bomb shelter with only seconds to spare.

Afterward, they would venture out into the deadly apocalyptic wasteland, everything black and smoking and burnt to a crisp, and Rusty would say, "It's really sort of beautiful in its own way, don't you think?" and Aunt Trish would squeeze his hand, which was her secret way of agreeing with him. They would visit Old House and Big House and the Duplex, which were all just piles of ashes now, and Rusty would bow his head and say, "Such a terrible shame," and they would all nod their heads and take a moment of silence and then go back to the bomb shelter and play Monopoly and drink alcoholic beverages until way after bedtime, because what did rules matter now, anyway? After a few days, when Aunt Trish had gotten over her daughter and everybody else getting blown to bits, she and Rusty would take off their clothes until they were nude and start doing some serious kissing and maybe even s.e.xual relations in their own private section of the bomb shelter, because they loved each other and then there was the survival of the human race to think about, wasn't there?

He took the book from the waistband of his jeans and held it out to his mother. "It's a present. For you. I didn't have time to wrap it, but I got it special, it was hard to get, but I wanted to give you a present, because you never get good presents." He wiped the book on his jeans because his hands had gotten it all sweaty.

"I know you're upset-" his mother started to say, but he held the book out to her so she had to take it. She put it right up to her nose to see it in the dark and when she read the t.i.tle and got a good look at the cover, she said, "Where did you get this?" Her voice was suddenly all high and crazy. "Why did you give this to me?"

Something had happened to his mother's face. Her eyes were black and s.h.i.+ning and her lips shook. He took a step back. He raised his arm to point at the closet, let it drop back against his side. "It's a present?" he said. "I got it for you."

"You take this," she said, waving it at him. She wouldn't look at him now. "You get it out of here. You're not supposed to be here. You want me to call your father? You want me to tell Aunt Beverly?"

His face stung and his throat closed up. He swallowed and tried not to cry, but it was already coming. What a gyp! He started to do the hiccup thing where he could hardly breathe. "I'm not, uh...uh...uh...taking uh...uh...uh...taking it," he cried, shuddering and gulping. "It's not it," he cried, shuddering and gulping. "It's not fair. fair." He was really bawling now. Trying to stop only made it worse, and he started making the snorking sound every two seconds and going uh-huck uh-huck uh-huck uh-huck uh-huck uh-huck. Why was he such a big effing bawlgut? Why did he have so much spit in his mouth?

"Please, Rusty, please," his mother said. "I don't want you to get into more trouble."

"It's a present present!" he choked.

"Don't," she said. "Please."

He said, "It's my special birthday birthday!" but it sounded more like somebody gargling a bucket of spit.

She put her head back on the pillow. "I can't anymore."

He backed up to the doorway. He waited, but she didn't say anything. "It's me, Rusty," he said. "The deputy marshal?"

He waited, but she was quiet. "Mama?"

"Okay," she said, as if she'd just been woken up. "I'll see you...soon."

He stood in the doorway and waited some more but she had put the earm.u.f.fs back on and closed her eyes. He let the door shut and looked at it for a while. He sniffed, he gulped, he went, uh-huck, uh-huck uh-huck, uh-huck.

He stopped crying when he thought he heard his mother say something, but it was only Aunt Nola downstairs yelling at somebody. He put To Love a Scoundrel To Love a Scoundrel down his pants. He went down the hall, past Herschel, who was still holding his invisible dollar, down the stairs and past the clicking dryers and then he was outside and on his bike and pedaling like a madman, but at the place where the driveway met the road he stopped. He looked around. There was nowhere for him to go. down his pants. He went down the hall, past Herschel, who was still holding his invisible dollar, down the stairs and past the clicking dryers and then he was outside and on his bike and pedaling like a madman, but at the place where the driveway met the road he stopped. He looked around. There was nowhere for him to go.

22.

JUST MARRIED

IT ALL STARTED ON A SWEET SUMMER DAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE twentieth century, a perfect day for a picnic. The unblemished sky, the stand of fragrant ponderosas stirred by a mountain breeze as warm and steady as an oceanic current. The day was perfect, and so was the picnic, which Beverly had planned to the last detail: a broad gingham cloth spread with cinnamon bread, fresh-squeezed orange juice from a thermos, croissants, sugared ham, slices of melon, a few wilting sunflowers arranged in a porcelain vase. Golden in his silk tie and gabardine suit jacket, she in her tea-length gown of cream twentieth century, a perfect day for a picnic. The unblemished sky, the stand of fragrant ponderosas stirred by a mountain breeze as warm and steady as an oceanic current. The day was perfect, and so was the picnic, which Beverly had planned to the last detail: a broad gingham cloth spread with cinnamon bread, fresh-squeezed orange juice from a thermos, croissants, sugared ham, slices of melon, a few wilting sunflowers arranged in a porcelain vase. Golden in his silk tie and gabardine suit jacket, she in her tea-length gown of cream peau de soie peau de soie. The whole thing a vision, a scene from a movie, just as she had always wanted.

They had been married less than an hour. Down the mountain, in a small opening in a stand of old ponderosas, a piece of black basalt stone thrust up at an angle out of the pine needles, furry at the base with lichen, long and flat on top like a narrow table. According to the Prophet, this was a sacred place where Book of Mormon prophets had come to make their blood sacrifices and hold counsel with the Lord. Though it was a rough forty-minute drive from Virgin, this was where many of the binding church ceremonies were held, and despite the bullet-riddled NO HUNTING NO HUNTING sign that had come to look like an antique cheese grater, the place felt as hushed and spiritual as any chapel built by human hands. sign that had come to look like an antique cheese grater, the place felt as hushed and spiritual as any chapel built by human hands.

The ceremony had been simple: in his guttural, failing voice, the Prophet had instructed the couple to hold hands, facing each other across the stone, which he called the altar. Then he pushed himself up out of his wheelchair, Uncle Chick at his side, and found a st.u.r.dy spot in the dirt with his cane. His body trembled like a tuning fork, lightly and without cease. He proclaimed his authority, granted by the ancient priesthood of Melchizedek that stretched back to Moses and Adam. It was just after dawn, and sunlight came through the trees in broad, dusty bands. As he p.r.o.nounced them man and wife, almost growling with the effort of it, Beverly stared hard into Golden's eyes, as if daring him to blink. He smiled apologetically, sighed, and blinked several times in succession. His face, stark in the morning light, was the picture of terror.

There was no ring, no vows. It was over before it began.

For a fundamentalist wedding, it had been a spa.r.s.ely attended affair: Uncle Chick and the Prophet and a few chosen church members who'd been coerced to make the drive. Beverly had no family to speak of, and none of Golden's had come. His father had pa.s.sed away eight months earlier, and his mother, back in Louisiana, had no idea what was happening because he'd had the good sense not to mention it to her.

Though Golden was famished now, he didn't want to disturb the carefully presented food. He nudged a slice of cantaloupe off its plate, nibbled at it in a way he thought might be appropriate. He tried not to yank at his wool trousers, which were making his thighs itch. The sun was in his eyes. He could hear bees buzzing in the gra.s.s. He was married now, to a woman he hardly knew, and he was at a loss for words.

He tried again to situate himself comfortably on the cloth, but ended up in an awkward position with his elbow underneath his ribs and one leg bent at an odd and revealing angle. He groaned a little, rolled sideways; he wasn't sure how one was supposed to recline on a picnic blanket while wearing a suit.

"So what do you think?" Beverly asked him. "About how everything has gone?"

"I don't know." His answer came out so quickly she looked startled.

"You don't know know?"

"I wish I did. I haven't had time to think about it. Sorry." He involuntarily sang out this last word.

As if to shut him up, she began to feed him. To Golden, this seemed an immensely charitable gesture. She put half a strawberry in his mouth, a wedge of tangerine. As far as he could remember, he had never been hand-fed by anyone, and he was surprised by how pleasurable it was. He was even more surprised by the way Beverly knee-walked her way behind him, peeled his jacket down his arms and began to knead his shoulders and neck. Golden was a deeply virginal human being, one whose first kiss came at the age of twenty with a woman he was already engaged to, one who was so ignorant of s.e.x in general, and his own body specifically, that he had never once m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed to a successful conclusion, despite several valiant attempts. But even he could tell there was something s.e.xual going on here. He had a.s.sumed they would consummate their marriage-he imagined something solemn and brief, like the wedding ceremony he'd just been a part of-in the Polar Bear Inn in Page, Arizona, where they would stay on the first night of their honeymoon trip to the Grand Canyon, but the thought of doing it here, right now on this blanket under the beautiful sky, suddenly seemed like an excellent idea.

Beverly was so busy with her ministrations, and Golden so busy receiving them, they didn't notice the smudge of dark cloud that rose slowly over the tops of the trees from the west and began seeping across the pure expanse of sky like an oil slick.

GROUND ZERO Exactly two hours and twenty minutes earlier, two hundred thirty miles to the west, a bomb named Roy had waited for the radio signal that would bring it to glorious fruition. Roy was an atomic bomb, a seventy-kiloton device five times more powerful than the sorry little firecracker that obliterated Hiros.h.i.+ma. He waited in a corrugated steel cab at the top of a heavily lighted four-hundred-foot tower that looked, in the predawn dark, as cheery as a Christmas tree.

Cradled in a nest of multicolored wires and encased in an aluminum sh.e.l.l about the size of a washtub, Roy hummed expectantly. In those last moments the surrounding desert was hushed except for the plaintive squeal of a young male guinea pig-one of fifty stuffed into small mesh tubes and placed at measured intervals around the tower. The one making the racket had good reason to complain; not only had it been hauled out of its cage and stuffed headfirst into a mesh tube without its customary breakfast, it was the closest of its brethren to Roy, close enough to hear the insistent and deadly hum.

Over loudspeakers, a droning countdown. Far away, in the blastproof control complex, a series of levers were thrown, a b.u.t.ton pushed, and from the tower came a mundane mechanical click-and silence. Inside that silence grew a strobing fluorescence that infused the broken landscape with a soft lavender glow, and then came the great shearing flash, a light so wildly bright and alien it seemed not like light at all but something from deepest s.p.a.ce: a cold, brute element, the birth-matter of stars, the silvery essence of every created thing. Soundlessly the glare expanded, lighting up the desert horizon to horizon in a single stark exposure, and in the same instant collapsing on itself, breaking up into a billion needles of light blown outward by a concussion that punched a hole in the atmosphere and s.h.i.+fted the plates of the earth.

The detonation tower was vaporized instantly, leaving a ghost image of itself standing like a three-dimensional shadow inside the roiling smoke. Everything within a quarter mile of ground zero: a fleet of obsolete tanks; several domed concrete bunkers inhabited by dogs bought from an animal shelter for a dollar apiece (a sedated German shepherd bristling with shunts and wires, a mutt chained in a tub of salt water, a whining Beagle suffocating inside a gas mask); various smiling dummies crucified on poles and postured behind the wheels of ammunition transport vehicles; a half-mile-long train trestle built for the occasion; twelve rabbits entombed in an experimental lead box; a World War II submarine half buried in the sand; and, of course, unlucky guinea pig number one-all ceased to exist in that single bright moment, leaving behind only their anonymous particles sucked up, along with thousands of tons of superheated sand, into a corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g vortex that hung like a tail from the ascending fireball.

A drone carrying a capuchin monkey named Alice and a dozen white mice flew too low into the boiling cloud and was flash-burned in a cartoon puff of smoke.

The scientists, miles away behind bombproof gla.s.s, knew immediately they had severely miscalculated; Roy was more awful, more viciously destructive than any of their most liberal predictions. They didn't cheer-they were scientists-but one of them called out, "Raises all around!" and another stepped behind a file cabinet and did a weird little feet-shuffling dance.

On the desert floor halfway between Roy and the scientists who'd made him, sixty soldiers hunkered down in a trench, bent at the waist like supplicants. They had been instructed to hold blast position for ten seconds after detonation-down on one knee, head bowed, right arm hooked tight across the eyes-but a private, a young Lithuanian boy from Scranton with a p.r.o.nounced widow's peak, would submit himself to none of this bulls.h.i.+t. His life had been f.u.c.k-all since day one and he had no reason to believe it would get any better; he had no plans, no future, only ugly memories, regrets. He decided that now was as good a time as any to stand up and look eternity in the eye.

While the other men were hunched against the embankment, muttering prayers or elbowing each other like boys in church, the young private stood up out of the trench at the moment of detonation and took it all in: the flash, the fireball, the great luminous X-ray that expanded like a bubble from a child's wand and showed him his own bones glowing red, the storm of beta particles and emanc.i.p.ated neutrons and other cosmic debris that pa.s.sed through him as if he were made of vapor. The radiation was a warm, blessed bath, cleansing him so deeply, down to the marrow of his glowing bones, that he thought he might weep: this lovely, helpless euphoria, the warm light, his genitals tingling pleasantly, his heart, so full, stalling in midcontraction-and then the shock wave hit. He had been so enchanted by the healing light, the vision of the rising cloud surrounded by a halo of fire-Terrible and Magnificent Roy!-that he hadn't noticed the desert floor tilting toward him in a buckling wave, spitting up rocks and dust as it came.

He was upended, the jolt starting his heart again. A wall of compressed air slammed him in the back as he fell and pressed him face first into the ground while sand and debris rained down in torrents. He heard screaming, and then a roar that obliterated everything, and he believed, hoped, he was dying.

When he came to he was in pain; his b.a.l.l.s ached, his skin tightened with a p.r.i.c.kly heat. His head rang. He tried to move and came to find he was partially buried under a drift of hot dust and cinders. He pushed himself up to his feet, swaying, knuckling his eyes. He blinked, and the fear that had eluded him a few seconds earlier gripped him tight. The desert was ablaze: thousands of acres of Joshua trees, creosote and mesquite bushes lit like candles floating on a dark sea. He saw three individual flames moving slowly up a distant hill, but he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. His eyes were fine; what he saw was a coyote and her two yearling pups stumbling up a ridge, their backs on fire.

Even with his ears plugged with dirt, he could hear an inhuman wailing from somewhere close by.

What a terrible person he'd been, what a truly sorry life he'd led. He resolved right then: he would be a better man, he would clean up his act, no more boozing and brawling, no more cheap wh.o.r.es. Oh, how his b.a.l.l.s hurt! If he'd known any prayers, he would have said one and he would have meant every word.

Behind him his comrades were picking themselves up, coughing and spitting the taste of burnt metal from their mouths. Someone next to him was sobbing or vomiting. Above their heads the cloud rose steadily on a blue raft of ionized air, the sky behind it billowing like a black curtain. What had seemed so beautiful a few minutes before now struck the private as vile, even wicked: a monstrous Portuguese man-of-war suspended against the dark sky, waiting to sting.

The sergeant stood in front of them, his eyes wild, shouting incoherently. The private didn't have to hear well to know what the sergeant was saying: he was telling them to get their squad lines ready, they were moving out. They were to speed-march to ground zero and secure it. These were their orders. The private quailed at the thought, but he was one of the first to line up; from here on he was going to be the type of man who obeyed all orders, who lived by the rules.

"Stop your f.u.c.king blubbering and move out!" the sergeant cried. The sergeant was bleeding from both nostrils, which n.o.body volunteered to mention.

They looked out across the scorched expanse in front of them. The desert sand had melted into a gla.s.sy green crust that glinted dimly with firelight. If only they could have looked into that dark gla.s.s and seen their own futures: sterility, neuromuscular degeneration, paralysis, depression, cancer of brain and bone, the thousand indignities of prolonged suffering, their deaths, much too soon.

Ignorant as they were, they hesitated. The sergeant ordered them onward and they stepped gingerly, as if out onto a frozen pond, wincing at the delicate cracking noise.

A LONE GIRL Roy, meanwhile, was just getting started. The crest of his robust cloud, still lit from within by pink and amber nuclear fires, had ascended to thirty thousand feet-five and a half miles-into the atmosphere. He moved quickly west across the lunar hills of the great desert, borne aloft by warm air currents, spreading in slow-bloom like a drop of ink in tap water, blocking out the light of dawn. Over the flat-pan playas and crumbling cinder cones burning orange with the new sun, the cloud flattened out as it b.u.t.ted against a rogue crosswind that sent it diving into the canyons and sand washes where wiry free-range cattle smelled something foul on the air and went bucking crazily into the brush. Over Ely and Buck Valley, across the broad Lincoln County Range laced with its ancient, wandering game trails that had been appropriated by humans and their livestock, ever-deepening grooves that crisscrossed the surface of the land like the creases in the palm of an old sheepherder's hand.

Walking one of these trails on her way home was a lone girl, nearly lost in the expanse of empty landscape: Nola Harrison, fifteen years old, cold, thirsty, sick with fear and guilt. Nola was a good girl, but last night she had decided to be bad. Everett Eckles had invited her to drive out to Snow Pa.s.s to watch the bomb go off. A secret A secret, he'd whispered to her after seminary study, just you and me. It's going to be a big one. just you and me. It's going to be a big one.

n.o.body had ever invited her to do anything, especially not a boy, especially not in the middle of the night. She was chubby, with a sweet, honest face and eyes that creased shut when she smiled.

Her sister's fancy Christmas sweater, which bore the crocheted likeness of a winking puppy, was still twisted around her chest, and she'd managed to lose one of her shoes. The night before had started so promisingly: she had snuck out of her house and waited by the stop sign, where Everett picked her up in his father's old International. They'd driven around for a half an hour in the dark, .30-30 sh.e.l.ls and empty antibiotic bottles rolling around on the floor. They listened to the radio. She stole sideways glances, trying to catch his eye. Though she hadn't paid much attention to him before, she decided that she liked him, that she had all along. He was not the most popular or good-looking boy around-he had protuberant eyes and he smelled like horse liniment-but he was popular and good-looking enough for her.

He had pulled the truck over in a stand of junipers and they'd stared out the winds.h.i.+eld together, listening to each other breathe. When he talked, he stuttered, and his hands kept themselves busy folding and refolding an old ag brochure until it fell apart in tatters. It took him a good five minutes to ease over the seat next to her. "I guess we'll kiss," he announced, and that was what they did, awkwardly b.u.t.ting heads and arranging themselves so he could take one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in each hand and rotate his wrists like he was calibrating dials. She heard a noise from the bed of the pickup, but a.s.sumed it was a ranch dog, and anyway she was busy wondering how far she would let this boy take her. He reached up under her sweater which, to her surprise and his, brought not so much as a mild protest. Just as he was figuring out the double clasp on her bra she heard what sounded like suppressed giggling. The truck rocked on its springs and two faces appeared at the back window, leering and hooting.

Two boys, Noel Cotcherly and LaVagen Humphries, bounced and howled in the pickup bed, and by the way Everett scooted away from her instantly, sneering and grinning back at his buddies, she knew this was some kind of joke, these boys had been watching everything.

"Wabba zabba!" shouted Noel Cotcherly, flexing his eyebrows. "Nyuk nyuk nyuk!"

She was too shocked for anger or embarra.s.sment. Everett was backed up against the driver's-side door, blinking at her in terror or glee, she couldn't tell. She wanted to say something but her throat had closed tight. She reached around on the floor and threw the first thing she found-an empty Copenhagen can-at Everett's grinning face. Then she got out of the pickup and slammed the door behind her; it was all she could think to do.

The truck pulled away into the darkness, wheels spinning, and the boys in back mooed like cows.

She had been walking for hours now, eyes closed, listening to the rasp of her feet against the fine red dust of that place. Behind her eyelids dim shapes billowed and swelled. She was feverish, disconnected from her body, which seemed to contract and shrink until she felt herself inside it once again, bitter and small.

She did not see Roy's great flash that lit up the heavens, did not hear the boom minutes later, did not notice the growing light of dawn or the malignant cloud that came over the horizon and tailed her like a slinking dog. Only when she felt a p.r.i.c.kling on the back of her neck did she open her eyes and look back, and when she saw the cloud, already on top of her, it seemed nothing more than a manifestation of the dark churnings inside her head.

She thought nothing of it at all until her skin began to burn. She was already coated with a layer of fine ash that had gotten into her eyes and mouth. She tried to run her way out of it, moaning and digging at her stinging eyes, until she skidded into a ditch and covered her head with her arms, praying out loud for forgiveness, begging G.o.d to spare her, to let this avenging angel pa.s.s her by.

When she got home, she ignored her mother who frantically called up the stairs after her, wanting to know what had happened, where she'd been. In the washroom she looked at herself in the mirror: still covered with soot, black as a demon, her eyes so frighteningly white. With a bar of soap she scrubbed her face and neck and then worked at her scalp and her hair. Her hair-brown-red and l.u.s.trous, always her best feature-sloughed off like wet cardboard in her hands.

Nola had always been known as a serious, even secretive girl, but from that day on she would play the clown, wearing her funny homemade wig, hamming it up, deflecting attention by inviting it, taking nothing seriously ever again.

THE CURSE OF THE FATHER Roy continued on, stalking the countryside, sowing his swarms of radioisotopes like seeds: cesium 137, which infiltrates the fleshy tissues; strontium 90, which masquerades as calcium and goes directly to the bones; iodine 131, which has a particular fondness for the thyroid glands of children. Born of raw cataclysm, the ruin he would deliver now was of a variety more delicate, sophisticated: he would coat the roads and pastures and reservoirs with his radioactive powder, cling to homemade undergarments drying on clotheslines, drift like dream-dust through open windows to settle in ba.s.sinets and couch cus.h.i.+ons and cracks in the floorboards. He would inhabit this place and its people like a ghost. He would insinuate himself into the food chain and into the bodies of the hapless tenants of this land, and he would hide there, in their muscles and brains, breaking them down with exquisitely measured patience, day by day sipping at their bones' marrow, setting their nerves to smoldering and fouling their blood, allowing them all the while the privilege of watching their poisoned children wither to nothing, and only when he had his fill of their suffering would he usher them quietly, mercifully, from the precincts of the living.

Such sorry little towns and their rugged, hopeful people! So brave in their suffering, so proud of their ruined offspring, lined up each Sunday in the Row of Angels, each one a visible punishment for a thousand hidden sins.

Of course, he wasn't going to waste all his charm on these rocky backwaters; Roy had places to go. Salt Lake City, Fort Collins, Rock Springs, Gillette, and over the border into Alberta, where he would drop a nice dose of fallout on the Fort Defiance Wiener Roast and Founders Day Parade. Apparently unimpressed with Canada, he would circle back, buzzing the outskirts of greater Duluth, taking on moisture on his tour down the Mississippi River and releasing a thunder burst of irradiated rain over Chicago's South Side. Nearly two days after his detonation, Roy would leave the continent with one last gift; in an irony that would be lost on history, he would unload three minutes' worth of radioactive hail on Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

But of all Roy's victims, Golden Richards and his new bride were special. Like Nola Harrison and a few hundred other unfortunates, they found themselves in Roy's path when he was young, his cloud still dense and potent and close to the ground. As he swept over the crest of Mount Pennell, the newlyweds were in the preliminary stages of consummating their marriage. Beverly had thoroughly fed Golden, reduced him to jelly with an expert ma.s.sage, and was now nibbling at his downy earlobe. Somewhere in the middle of the ma.s.sage Golden had noticed the cloud overhead, but it didn't seem worth bringing up, really, it would have been impolite to interrupt Beverly, intent as she was on her work.

The wind picked up, rustling the gra.s.s, lifting up the edges of picnic cloth. Only when the cloud moved across the sun, blotting out its light like an eclipse in high speed, did she look up. Golden a.s.sumed it was just another summer mountain thunderstorm, nothing at all to worry about, let's try to ignore it why don't we, but Beverly knew better. This cloud was not the dull-metal gray of a thunderhead, but composed of several s.h.i.+fting colors: purplish black at the center bleeding to red and brown and then dull ocher around the edges. It boiled over the last ridge, full of strange, sparkling bits of light, and came in low through the trees.

"My G.o.d," Beverly said, words that startled Golden, both because it was a sin to use the Lord's name in vain-a sin he had never once heard a church member indulge in-and because she said them so naturally.

She stood and pulled at his arm, but he resisted, he was enjoying this picnic way too much, couldn't they just wait it out?

"Get," she said, yanking hard on his wrist, "up!"

Just then they both smelled something chemical and the air turned to acid in their noses and throats, making them gasp. A gust of wind pelted them with dust, blinding them for a moment. Mostly by feel, Golden scooped up the blanket with all the food in it and they ran. Down the hill, through the stand of ponderosas, and along the narrow two-track in the gra.s.s, the wind coming in hard bursts, pus.h.i.+ng the swirling smoke on top of them, covering them instantly with ash. They stumbled along, coughing and waving their arms as if under attack by insects, until they found the car.