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The four stare at one another in astonishment until gladness shapes their faces and makes music of their voices. Sun Spirit and Two Moon embrace. After the briefest hesitation, so do Vida and Sam. If he seems uncertain about his place in her affections, she gives him no reason to doubt that she will heed the advice the seer gave her in a recent dream:Be not so foolish as to cling to what was, rather than embrace what can be.In his scarred face, his eyes are beautiful and full of light. She kisses him.

The dogs and wolves come running from the woods to which they had retreated, as if in happy confirmation of the wisdom of the kiss, and Vida is overcome by joy she never expected to know again.

In the ruins of the helicopter, Terrence Boschvark wonders how long it will take for a dedicated team of the finest specialists to mend him. He doesn’t care about the cost; he can afford whatever the doctors wish to charge, even make each of them a billionaire if he must. He assumes, for it’s not in his character to fail to assume, that eternal life through the grace of high technology is still his destiny once he gets past this bump in the road. He’s lightheaded, and his vision repeatedly blurs, and he’s confused about how he got here and where “here” is, but he is in no pain, which surely means that his injuries are minor. The cockpit is torn and battered, and the air reeks of spilled fuel, but he’s still belted in his seat, which is reassuring.

Not so reassuring is the fact that Mack Yataghan is also belted in his seat but is headless. In the crash, one of the double-swept rotor blades carved through a section of the cabin, and now Mack’s head is in his lap, gazing up at his sheered neck.

Boschvark tries to move, but he can’t even wiggle a finger. He can speak, however, and he mutters curses when the wolves appear at the portion of the cabin where a door and part of the fuselage were ripped away. He’s not afraid. He’sangrythat they might complicate the work of rescuers who will arrive soon with sirens blaring.

When Nochelobo’s whore appears behind the wolves and peers in at him, his anger burns into rage. “Die,” he says, “die, damn you,” as if he can kill by command. And then a funny thing happens.

Vida and the wolves fade away as if they are not real. As they disappear, darkness settles around the wreckage, and in mere seconds the pale, pocked moon rises as if time has accelerated. It is a full lunar sphere so immense that it seems to be descending onthe Earth in an inevitable cataclysm. Before he is able to decide whether to be fearful or furious, a figure emerges from the night and stands silhouetted in the immense moon. An albino mountain lion. As white as a ghost but not immaterial. The idiot locals call it Azrael. He never would have imagined that an animal would one day speak to him or that it would issue an invitation. Although the cougar’s face is fierce, its voice is matter-of-fact when it says, “Come with me.” Everything goes black.

“They’re both dead,” Vida reports when she returns from the wreckage. “The chopper will be emitting a GPS signal, so someone will be coming sooner or later.”

“It’s best for all of us,” Sam says, “if no one ever knows we were here, at least not at the time when this happened.”

As the wolves lead the dogs and the dogs lead the people off the plateau and to the path by which they came here, Two Moon says, “Sun Spirit and I will ride our horses into Kettleton for staples the day after tomorrow. By then, everyone will be talking about the crash and Boschvark’s death.”

“We’ll say we never knew about the project,” Sun Spirit adds.

“Which we didn’t,” her husband says, “until you visited us. But when we hear about it, we can raise the issue of the burial ground.”

“You’ll make targets of yourselves,” Vida warns.

Sun Spirit scribes the sign in the air that she previously made as though to ward off the helicopter. “If we can wake the remaining people of our nation from their long sleep, as well as those of some other tribes, there will be too many targets to allow themto turn the Land of Spirits Waiting into a three-thousand-acre bird-killing machine.”

The fragrances of pines and forest mast replace the acrid scent of spilled aviation fuel, and green shadows welcome them down into the ancient, vulnerable, but enduring forest.

77

THE BOX

One month after the events on the plateau, Sam and Vida have enjoyed dinner together on seven occasions. This is the fourth time she has cooked for them at her house. Following dessert, she brings the brightly wrapped box to the table to be opened while they are having coffee.

She has intended to wait until her next birthday before opening this gift, and she has meant to attend it alone, lest the contents might wring too much emotion from her.

However, considering that the fortuneteller’s advice has been worth heeding in all matters, Vida is prepared not to cling to what was, even though she will always treasure it, and to embrace what can be. Since she was orphaned at five, there have been just three men of the highest caliber in her life, and it seems right that she should in some ineffable way unite them here. In her uncle’s house, where she welcomed José in his courting, with Sam’s future and hers entwined, she opens the card attached to the gift.

She reads José’s neat cursive aloud to Sam. They are the words that were painted on the seer’s Volkswagen bus. “Look with kindness on those who suffer, who struggle against difficulties, who drink unceasingly the bitterness of this life.” Under this, her first love has written, “As much as she did, you have the wisdom and the heart to show others out of the darkness and into light.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Sam says, and raises his glass.

She cries, of course. The tears have been pent up a long time.

With some effort, she slides the shiny blue ribbon off the box without cutting it and avoids tearing the paper, for she intends to save them both.

Perhaps she should know what she will find inside, but she is surprised. A pair of bright-yellow sneakers.

78

SEEING

The house is larger now, as it needs to be not just to make room for Sam but also to accommodate his seven dogs. The expansion was paid for by the proceeds from the sale of his residence.

They work the placer mine together. She has taught him how to process the raw stones into beautiful gems.

He still offers a search service, although not to the likes of the Bead crime family. He has taught her how to work the dogs, which adore her, and always together they find lost children and wandering adults with Alzheimer’s—and even an occasional escaped prisoner, for she fears no one or anything other than losing what she loves.

Lupo visits with and without his pack, but when Vida and Sam set out to pick wild blackberries, a full complement of wolves always accompanies them in expectation of their generosity.

They cut wildflowers to put on her uncle’s grave and drape the headstone with holly on Christmas.

They give no thought to the buried Trans Am or the Plymouth Superbird Hemi with their eternal occupants. This is a world of many wonders and mysteries and miracles, but there are no ghosts.

From time to time, Vida is inspired to dress in a white T-shirt and white chinos and the yellow sneakers. She sits in one of therocking chairs on the porch, sipping a mug of coffee. Although she has neither a decorated van bearing words of wisdom nor a banner with silver moons and stars, and though she doesn’t ask for what a visitor values least, she never has to wait long before someone—usually a local but now and then a total stranger—comes to sit with her. Each visitor has something she or he needs. Often, they don’t know why they have come, but Vida always knows, for she has a way of seeing.

With deep woods all around, she feels safe here and at peace.

Most people regard the primeval forest as a threatening domain of wilderness trails that often lead bewildered hikers to their deaths, nests of poisonous snakes, dens of sharp-toothed predators—a realm where Nature is red of tooth and claw. To Vida, however, the forest is a place of solace and succor where she is welcome because she has knowledge of—and deep respect for—its ways. In her experience, it is civilization, riven by human arrogance and greed and envy, that is, at its worst, a forest of lost souls.