A Fleeting Glimpse of Shadow

It was dark by the time Michael, Dr. Walker, and Frances made it to the bottom of the ridge, and it had grown a little warmer as they'd descended. The snow was gone and Michael could hear soft trilling noises coming from the low sage scrub and cliffrose – "Birds, I guess," he thought, and had a sudden irrational conviction that Frances knew exactly what kind of bird it was. After all, he'd proved himself to be so unexpectedly Woodsy, and Woodsy People knew things like that – birdcalls and flower names and poison ivy and what kinds of mushrooms would kill you if you ate them. He leaned close to his lover, bringing his lips up to his ear and breathed: "What kind of bird was that?"

Frances looked at him and smiled; then he leaned over and whispered back: "Tree frog." Michael felt very foolish; couldn't he even tell the difference between a bird and an amphibian? Frances winked at him, his eyes twinkling, and then from ahead of them Dr. Walker turned and gestured them down.

Frances and Michael sank to the cool prickly earth; Michael could feel dirt and stones and tickling plants beneath his palms. He followed Frances, crawling through fernbush scrub, though he wanted to instinctively shrink from the sharp rocks and branches that stabbed at his hands and knees, and the cold dampness that soaked the knees of his jeans, and the mud that clung to his palms. He tried to be as quiet as possible, but even so he felt as big and clumsy as a hippopotamus behind Frances and Dr. Walker. Right over his head some sort of animal gave a harsh grating croak; Michael jumped and clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his squeak of surprise. Frances looked over his shoulder at him questioningly.

"Tree frog?" Michael whispered.

Frances' normally severe face split into a jolly grin. "Crow," he whispered. "That's a bird, darling." He obviously found Michael's ignorance to be very amusing, and Michael felt a surge of annoyance. It wasn't HIS fault he didn't know anything about wild! W! Who'd teach him, anyway? It wasn't as though Frances EVER took him anywhere except for art shows and concerts and –

"Shh!" Dr. Walker's hiss of warning floated back through the scrub to them and they froze, straining to listen. Then, off in the distance, Michael thought he could hear something – a thrumming – a thumping – then his thoughts seemed to coalesce and he realized he was hearing machinery. Dr. Walker gestured them forward, and when they crawled to the edge of the brake Michael saw they were looking down into a deep dell at a long, low metal building tucked back against the edge of the hill, looking almost as though it was burrowing into the hill and beneath the earth as well. There was another fence surrounding it, with biohazard and radioactivity signs warning people off, and as they appeared to be facing the rear of the building Michael saw the noise was being made by a group of large generators. The smell of gasoline, to which he'd grown accustomed the past few hours, came back to him, and it seemed suddenly abhorrent that someone had put machinery and gas in this pretty bucolic place. Michael had his pet charities already but in his indignation promised himself he'd send a check off to the Sierra Club at the first opportune moment. This sort of thing really ought to be Stopped.

Dr. Walker tugged on Frances' sleeve and pointed down. There was a helicopter pad below them, but it was empty; the two men seemed to find this a good sign. They both shed their back packs and settled down into the dry grass, waiting.

Michael lay down too, and watched the two men watch the building. There was no one around, which Michael found a touch disconcerting; with all those warning signs and razor-wire fences, shouldn't there at least be guards? And where was the helicopter? Then he remembered Mrs. Walker and the airplane, and the sounds he'd heard in the desert, and realized the people in this building must still be looking for her. He hoped they didn't find her, whoever they were; they couldn't possibly be Good People, if they were hiding out so secretly in the woods like this! Besides, Frances and Dr. Walker were obviously intending to do something Bad to the people in the metal building, and with the mental equivalent of choosing his side of the fence, Michael decided that whatever Frances and Dr. Walker did was Right and whoever opposed them was Wrong and That Was That. He felt a guilty thrill when he remembered Frances' objection to Legs that what he was being asked to do was Treason. "I wonder if this is a government facility?" he thought, and looked around for signs that might point in that direction.

They lay in the s los looking down into the dell for almost an hour. The stars had faded with the rising of the moon, bloated at its three-quarter mark and casting blue-black shadows all around them. Then Dr. Walker raised his head, looking up at the sky, and Frances looked up too; after a minute Michael could hear it – a low even thup-thup-thup – a helicopter. Dr. Walker jerked his head, and they carefully crawled backwards beneath the haven of the fernbrush. The thudding, poundnoisnoise got louder, filling the night sky with a horrible cacophony against the peaceful darkness, and a white light stabbed round them, searching for them from above. Michael buried his face in his arms, feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable, and wished he were invisible. Then the light moved, and the noise seemed to sink and sit still; after about five minutes it slowed and stopped, and he could hear men's voices below them, sounding faint and small.

Dr. Walker crept forward again, and Frances and Michael followed; lying low against the edge of the dell they looked down at the building. A large gray-green helicopter was squatting there, its bulbous nose looking as though it sported grasshopper's eyes; its rotors still spun slowly, even though the engines had been cut. Three men in uniforms – "So this is a government facility," thought Michael, fighting down his panic; those were U.S. Army cammos – climbed out of the plane, one of them removing a headset; they all three had guns strapped to their hips. Two men in jumpsuits ran out of a side door to the metal building, followed by another man in a uniform. The three helicopter men saluted, and Michael could hear their voices but couldn't understand what they were saying. The two men in jumpsuits were climbing around the helicopter, dragging hoses and moving things about.

Dr. Walker leaned over to Frances and murmured, "Thank god – I was wondering what we'd do if they didn't refuel it."

"Plan B," whispered Frances, smiling faintly. Dr. Walker shook his head.

"Take too long to walk," he whispered. He rested his chin on his arms. Michael leaned over to him, starting to feel a little nervous again.

"Are you going to steal it?" he breathed into Dr. Walker's ear.

Dr. Walker grinned. "No – just appropriate it for a while," he whispered, winking at Frances, who rolled his eyes.

Remembering the airplane's rough landing in the desert, Michael swallowed. "Can you fly it?" he whispered nervously.

"That old Huey? Sure," murmured Dr. Walker confidently. Feeling only marginally comforted Michael settled back into the grass, watching the men in uniform talk for a moment, then file back into the building, leaving the two technicians with the helicopter. They waited for at least another hour for the men to finish refueling and servicing the helicopter; Michael started to feel very cold and stiff, and felt annoyed at the men for taking so long. When at last they left the helicopter on the pad and returned to the building, taking their tool boxes with them, Dr. Walker breathed a sigh of relief.

"Finally," he breathed. "Honestly, kids these days." He turned to Michael, who lay nervously biting his fingers and staring at the metal building. "Stay here," he whispered. "Don't let anyone see you." He and Frances started to crawl toward the edge of the dell, and Michael panicked, realizing they were leaving him alone in the darkness.

"Don't leave me!" he hissed, grabbing at Frances' ankle. Frances turned, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and smiled at him.

"We'll be back in an hour," he promised, caressing Michael's chin with his long fingers. "Just going to get Legs, hop in the chopper and head out. Nothing to worry about."

Fighting back tears, Michael nodded; it was very hard to be Brave, especially after everything that had happened to him that week, but then he remembered Doris and her rock-solid assurance and took heart. If she could do it, so could he. Lying back down on the grass, he watched Frances and Dr. Walker creep down the slope in the shadows, nearly obscured by the tall scrubby underbrush and rocks; then they like dark ghosts drifted past the corner of the building and disappe.
.

Courage, Michael discovered then, only came in waves. It was one thing to think to himself, "Everything will be fine. I have to be brave," but after that first warming thrill of conviction the darkness and the silence and worry oppressed him, and he had to remind himself to be brave over and over again. It became exhausting, this monitoring of his nerves; he didn't dare let his mind wander, wanting to be alert to any signs of danger or to the appearance of his friends, but at the same time simply lying there staring at the quiet, dark metal building in the middle of northern Arizona sapped his reserves of courage and he found himself shivering with apprehension, trying not to think of all the terrible things that Might Happen, that could be happening AT THAT MOMENT while he, Michael Morris, sat still and safe and hidden in the grass – they could be Captured or Arrested or Anything; his imagination came up with half a hundred horrible possibilities, and each time another surfaced he gritted his teeth, took firm mental stock of himself, and thought, "No. I won't sit here and worry. I'm going to be Brave." And then the cycle would begin again, and Michael would go from apprehension to courage in a split second.

After a long time – he thought perhaps it may have been an hour, but since his watch was still sitting on his bureau at home he had no idea, and no way of finding out – he saw the side door of the metal building open again, and he raised his head hopefully. Was it Time? But he didn't recognize the outlined form in the light; it was a short stocky man, not the tall, slender men he was hoping for. His interest faded in vague disappointment, which grew instead into nervous apprehension when more men exited, all holding long low guns – "Rifles or machine guns," he thought, starting to lose his nerve; had Frances and Dr. Walker been captured? Nearly ten men had exited and were milling around, some with flashlights scanning over the ground; then one of them said something in a sharp voice, and they dispersed, some going around the corner of the building, some into the back lot where the generators were, and two –

-- coming up the slope towards him.

A great big knot clenched around Michael's throat, and he could hear a high-pitched whining in his head, signaling to him that he'd stopped breathing. Terror filled him as the two men approacheheirheir booted feet crunching over the rocks and brush, both with their guns tucked beneath their arms, both with flashlights casting bright pinpoint rays around, dancing and bobbing over the uneven ground. They were twenty yards off – ten – they were getting too close – fighting down his panic he tried to slowly slide back into the fernbrush, but his sneaker lace snagged on a branch and it snapped loudly. The two men paused, casting up around him with their flashlights; then a beam of white passed over his hand, illuminating it, and with a shout the two men ran up the slope.

All thoughts of stealth vanished and Michael jumped up and tried to run. He crashed through the underbrush, his down jacket snagging and catching on the branches in his flight; the other two men were faster and more familiar with the ground and caught him up easily. Michael heard them get closer and closer; his breath was coming out of his throat in sobs; he had to get away he had to get away he had to he had to he had to –

A hand grabbed him, a voice said sharply, "Halt!" It seemed a rather melodramatic thing to say but it was surprisingly effective. Michael was thrown on his face, and a cold hard thing jabbed him in the backhis his neck – the muzzle of a gun. He let out a terrified whine, pressing his face into the dirt, raising his hands so the men could see them. He heard someone walk around him, then a hand turned him over roughly. Michael stared up into a clean-cut young man's face; the dark eyes looked angry and suspicious.

"Who the hell are you?" he barked.

A name, a name, I need a name – "Phil Boyles," Michael whimpered, thinking of his old high school nemesis and hoping this came back to haunt him somehow. The other man, still aiming the gun at him, snapped, "What are you doing here?"

"I don’t know," Michael admitted, trying not to hyperventilate in his panic. "I don’t know where I am – I'm lost – "

"Get up," said the first man, kicking him with his boot. Biting back a yelp of pain Michael struggled to his feet. He could see leaves and pine needles sticking out of his jacket and wished he could brush it off, but had a sudden conviction any moves toward his pockets would upset his captors, so he let the detritus dangle sto stood, hands upraised, gasping out sobs and looking at the two men with watery eyes.

Other men were charging up the slope. They made a lot of noise compared to Frances and Dr. Walker; Michael wondered where his friends were and hoped they hadn't been captured too. Flashlights swung and wobbled over him, making him squint sharply when they hit his eyes; at last he was surrounded by ten men in Army cammos, all aiming their shiny dangerous-looking guns at him and glaring at him suspiciously. One of them stepped forward.

"Good job, you two," he said. He studied Michael coldly. He was a bit older than the others and Michael thought he looked like a nasty piece of work – cruel, the sort of man who enjoyed hurting others. Michael swallowed heavily. He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks and knew that instead of inciting these men to pity, they would only worsen his fate – his captors had the look of those for whom weakness is despicable and worthy of brutality. He knew those expressions – he recognized them. They were the same faces of the boys who had tormented him in high school – bullies, eager to prove themselves, relishing their control over someone weaker or different than they.

"All right then, Mr. Boyles," said the older man, his mouth curving in a humorless smile. "Why don't you step inside for a chat? The Major's been looking forward to meeting you."

The sharp point of a gun barrel shoved Michael forward, and he stumbled; the men around him laughed. Heart in his throat, his limbs like water, he tremblingly followed in the midst of the uniformed men around the corner of the building to the door.

"I'm dead," he thought to himself, and then suddenly he remembered Legs was supposed to be inside too, and felt a little better. "He promised he'd take care of me, and he's saved my life once already," he thought, trying to slow the hammering of his heart as they walked through the door and down a long bright corridor. "Maybe he'll save me again." Comforted a little by that thought Michael gathered the tatters of his courage about himself once more and followed his captors further into the building.