of their branches by the thousands, fluttering to earth in shimmering cascades. The truck turned off the highway twenty miles north of Moab and crawled across public land on a winding two track to Yellow Cat Flat, hard against the northern border of Arches National Park.
A few final leaves clung to the skeletal limbs of the cottonwoods in town when the year’s first winter storm drew a bead on southern Utah a week later. He checked the truck’s timetable on the O&G Seismic website as the storm bore down, set to bring decreasing temperatures, whipping winds, and icy sleet to canyon country. According to the schedule, the truck would be thumping its way across the broad desert flat just outside the park throughout the storm.
* * *
He checked his drill and tested the detonator and timer batteries. He apportioned the blasting powder with care, making sure his measurements were exact.
The storm crossed into Utah late in the afternoon. Dense clouds gathered over the state as darkness fell, bringing heavy snow to the northern mountains and sleet to the high desert lands in the south. He deleted his secret online account and drove over the Colorado River bridge after nightfall, slowing to toss the laptop into the roiling waters below.
Biting gusts of wind and frigid blasts of sleet struck him when he shouldered his pack and set out on foot, clicking on his headlamp and hiking into the empty desert. He wended his way through sage and rabbitbrush, the bluffs and promontories at the heart of Arches National Park looming above him, black against the overcast sky in the midnight darkness.
He finished hand-drilling the hole in the sandstone arch as the sky lightened with dawn. The arch soared across the desert, connecting humped ridges of slickrock. He tamped the blasting powder into the drill hole, sank the parallel detonation prongs into the charge mixture, and backed away, unspooling the thin detonator cord as he went. He crouched in a shallow pothole two hundred feet from the rock span, plunger in hand.
The first thump of the day pulsed through him in his hiding place at 7:30, right on schedule. A second thump coursed through him from the north seconds later, then another, and another. Needles of wind-driven sleet gathered on his shoulders as the inexorable beat of the pulses continued. Trembling with anticipation, he wrapped his fingers around the plastic plunger handle, preparing to press it downward.
A light tap-tap-tapping noise reached him—the sound of running steps, propelled by the squalling wind. He stiffened and checked his watch: 7:35. He leaned forward, eyes wide and heart pounding.
She appeared a hundred yards beyond the arch, her blue jacket and black tights stark against the gray clouds. She ran through the swirling sleet with the easy gait of a gazelle, crossing the spine of rock high above the desert floor, headed straight for the stone span.
He nearly leapt to his feet and screamed at her to stop. But he had a job to do. He knelt in place, his head ducked, convinced she wouldn’t dare venture onto the arch itself.
She slowed and edged down the sloping ridge of stone—and stepped from the solid rock onto the narrow span.
The digital numbers on his watch flicked from 7:35 to 7:36. Timing was critical if his alibi was to hold up. He tightened his fingers around the plunger handle, his breaths coming in strangled gasps.
She extended her arms from her sides and placed one foot directly in front of the other, her pace slow and deliberate. She was fifteen feet out on the arch when, finally, he could contain himself no longer.
He rose from the depression and revealed himself to her, convinced the mist and sleet between them would make it impossible for her to see his face clearly. Surely, having been spotted, she would retreat.
The plunger, forgotten in his hand, slipped from his fingers. Its handle struck his shoe. It depressed little, if any—but a sharp, concussive crack sounded from the arch.
The woman dropped her arms, her gaze fixed on the bridge of stone extending through the air in front of her.
The middle of the span cleaved in two. Dark lines shot like black lightning down its entire length. For an instant, the arch maintained its shape, suspended in the sky. Then it fractured into dozens of jagged chunks of stone.
“No!” he cried out.
Too late.
The woman screamed and grabbed at the air with outstretched fingers as she fell with the pieces of the shattered arch to the desert floor five stories below.
PART ONE
“League on league of red cliff and arid tablelands,extending through purple haze over the bulging curve ofthe planet to the ranges of Colorado—a sea of desert.”
—Edward Abbey, describing Arches National
Monument, soon to become Arches National Park,
in Desert Solitaire, 1968
1
Thump.
Chuck Bender quivered from head to toe as the pulsing vibration passed through his body.
He lay awake beside his wife, Janelle Ortega, in their camp trailer. His stepdaughters, Carmelita and Rosie, slept in narrow bunk beds opposite the galley kitchen halfway down the camper’s center aisle, their breaths soft and steady.
He didn’t need to check his watch to know the time. The O&G Seismic truck had begun its work promptly at 7:30 the previous two mornings. No doubt the crew was on schedule at the start of this day as well.
Chuck pulled back the curtain over the window abutting the double bed at the back of the trailer. Sleet pelted the glass. Dark clouds hung low over the campground. He dropped the curtain back into place. Another thump sounded, followed by another rolling vibration, as the seismic truck pounded the earth outside Arches National Park to the north, trolling for underground deposits of oil and natural gas.
He rolled to face Janelle. Her eyes were closed, but her breathing was uneven, wakeful. He drew a line down her smooth olive cheek, tracing the gentle arc of her skin with his fingertip. Her eyes remained shut, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
“Hey, there, belleza,” he murmured, lifting a lock of her silky black hair away from her face.
She opened her eyes and turned to him, tucking her hands beneath her pointed chin. “Belleza nadie. Nobody’s beautiful this early in the morning.”
“You are. Besides, it’s not that early. We slept in.”
A powerful gust roared through the campground, tearing at the trailer’s aluminum shell.
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s some storm.”
“As predicted.” He gathered her in his arms and pressed his body to hers.
Sheets rustled in the lower bunk. Janelle raised her head to peer down the walkway over Chuck’s shoulder. “Look who’s awake,” she said. “Buen día, m’hija.”
“Hola, Mamá,” eleven-year-old Rosie responded from the bottom bunk in her deep, raspy voice. “You two woke me up with all your lovey-dovey talking. Are you having sex?”
Chuck released Janelle, who slid away from him to her side of the bed. A snort of laughter sounded from behind the drawn curtain that hid thirteen-year-old Carmelita in the top bunk.
Janelle grinned at Chuck as they lay facing each other. She said to Rosie, “No, honey, we’re not … we’re not …”
“… having sex? But you said that’s what people do when they love each other.”
“There’s a time and place for everything, m’hija. I can’t say this is exactly the right time and place to be asking about that sort of thing, but I guess it’s good you’re remembering all the stuff we’ve been talking about.”
“The birds and the bees,”