Battle Mountain

(George Simhoni - Gallery Stock - )

She did. She swiveled the mirror at different angles, but none of them seemed to alarm her as they should have. A Leo, impossibly vain and self-deluded -- and not a good match for me, a clear-eyed Gemini. The street psychic had pointed this out, too, but she said our romance had a chance if we massaged each other with an oil blend that smelled of lilacs and pencil shavings. We sniffed the amber bottle but didn't buy. Fifteen bucks was half a tank of gas, and in our situation fuel and driving range, along with Diet Mountain Dew and prescription sedatives, are everything.

"If you're panicked about it, I won't accept a ride. I'll walk all the way to Elko."

"Two hours. Minimum."

"I can see a light from here."

I saw the light, too, in the east, across the canyon, but it didn't cast the sort of radiance that signals civilization on the horizon. It was one of those beacons of Western loneliness that designate a turnoff to a prison or help mark the flight paths of military jets. My father had flown this region in his AWACs, from Fallon to Ely and up to Pocatello, testing and tracking the equipment that ought to win all our wars by the first morning following the opening bombardment. He'd told me he'd seen a UFO once here -- the same darting craft on two successive nights. Fighters were scrambled from Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, he said, but the ship evaded them, mostly through startling vertical maneuvers that he compared to a popping champagne cork. He said he suspected the vessel was one of ours, and the thought seemed to soothe him. America was safe. Or safe from above, which was all he seemed to care about as an Air Force man and Jehovah's Witness. I was different. I feared the horizontal threats. Snakes to begin with, then cougars, then all the other ones. Even Holly, the first few times we spoke.

I took control and put the car in gear, but the moment it started rolling forward Holly sprawled across me, popped her latch, then lunged through her open door onto the shoulder. She wouldn't get far without both flip-flops, though, and one of them was still lying on the floor mat. I grabbed it and held it up for her to see, but she was walking off by then.

A semi rushed past with jointed double trailers heaped with glinting mining tailings. Its slipstream stirred a dust cloud and shook my chassis, but Holly proceeded straight ahead. I let her advance 100 yards or so, then crept up even with her, stopped, and tossed her flip-flop out her open window. She put it on and resumed her silly march, which I decided to indulge her in. We'd been together for almost a year, here and there but always side by side, working until we had the savings to party, partying until we had to work again, and finally wangling a no-down-payment mortgage on that Phoenix condo we had no business buying but our lender insisted we'd be glad we had. She knew best. We sold it at a profit, which we squandered, though not all in the first week, but we could do better next time, I had a feeling. Maybe this was the feeling that frightened Holly: that people's chances never quite run out these days, that there's always a new beginning around the corner when what you long for is a climax, a big ending. Because new beginnings mean new middles, of course, and middles are what bore her. Me too, but less so.

I let her walk for a while and fantasize. I let her imagine that everything was finished and savor the sense of doom and banishment that had drawn us together in the first place. I didn't want to let her die, though. That was a pleasure meant for sharing. To do so alone, without me, would be selfish -- the ultimate act of exclusion and infidelity.

I cruised up beside her and synchronized our pace: 3 mph. "Tired of this yet?"

"I was tired last fall. I'm past that now."

"Anytime you're ready to take a load off. Great classic rock station starting to come in."

"Maybe I'll call myself Smoky and sell my body. Maybe I'll dance topless for dollar tips and get all messed up on the hard stuff. That makes you see things. I've never actually hallucinated."