'Going over the pass and plateau to Henson Creek?' asked Gavin. 'We're going to climb Uncompahgre,' said the heavy blond boy in shorts. Gavin and the others squatted by the fire. Maggie plucked a strand of grass and chewed it. 'That's where we're headed tomorrow,' she said. 'The map says it's about another nine miles to the south ridge of Uncompahgre. That right?'
'Yeah,' said the bearded redhead. 'That's about right.' Baedecker pointed to the long metal tubing wrapped in sailcloth. 'That's quite a load to carry all the way to the mountain,' he said.
'Rogallo,' said the girl named Maria.
'Ahhh,' said Tommy, 'I shoulda guessed that. Far out.'
'Rogallo,' said Gavin. 'I see it now.'
'What's a Rogallo?' asked Maggie.
'A kite,' said the blond boy. 'A hang glider.'
'What make?' asked Baedecker.
'Phoenix VI,' said the redhead. 'You know it?'
'No,' said Baedecker.
'Going to go off the south ridge?' asked Gavin.
'Off the summit,' said Maria. She glanced sideways at the silent, long-haired man next to her. 'It's our gig, Lude's and mine.'
'Off the top,' breathed Tommy. 'All right.' The redheaded boy stirred the fire. 'We're gettin' it on film for our film-making course at C.U. We figure about forty-five minutes after editing. We're gonna enter it . . . you know . . . festivals and stuff. Maybe some sports company or something will want it as a promotional thing.'
'Should be interesting,' said Gavin. 'But tell me, why are you taking the long way in?'
'What do you mean?' asked the girl.
'This old jeep trail down the Cimarron is more than twice as long as the way if you'd driven up Henson Creek Road from Lake City and hiked north,' said Gavin.
'This is the way,' said Lude. His voice made the others pause. It was a deep, raspy voice that did not seem to leave his throat. He still had not looked up from the fire. Looking at him, Baedecker could see flames reflected in the deep orbits of the eyes.
'Well, good luck to you,' said Gavin and stood up. 'Hope the weather holds.' Baedecker and Maggie rose to leave with Gavin, but Tommy remained squatting by the fire.
'I'm going to stay a few minutes,' said the boy. 'I want to hear more about the hang glider.' Gavin paused. 'Okay, see you in a while.'
Around their own fire once again, Gavin explained the others' plans to his wife. 'Is that safe?' asked Deedee.
'It's idiocy,' said Gavin.
'Hang gliders can be pretty elegant machines,' said Baedecker.
'They can be murderous,' said Gavin. 'I knew an Eastern Airlines pilot in California who was killed in one of those things. The guy had twenty-eight years' experience flying, but it didn't help a bit when his kite stalled. He put the nose down to pick up airspeed . . . same thing I'd do, same thing you'd do, Dick. Natural instinct. But that's all wrong in one of those toys. The thing mushed in on him from fifty feet and snapped his neck.'
'And off a mountain,' said Deedee. She shook her head.
'A lot of hang glider pilots fly off mountains these days,' said Baedecker. 'I used to watch them fly at a sandhill called Chat's Dump south of St. Louis.'
'A sandhill or seacoast cliff is one thing,' said Gavin. 'Uncompahgre Peak is something else. You haven't seen it yet, Dick. Wait till you get a glimpse of it up the canyon tomorrow. Uncompahgre's a big wedding cake of a mountain, shelves and ridges running off it in every which direction.'
'Doesn't sound good for thermals,' said Baedecker.
'It would be a nightmare . . . plus there's almost always a high wind at fourteen thousand feet. It's a three-thousand-foot drop to the plateau, and even that's over ten thousand feet high . . . and most of the plateau is rocks and boulders. It would be insane to fly there.'
'Then why are they doing it?' asked Maggie. Baedecker noticed how green her eyes were in the firelight.
'Did you see that one fellow's — Lude — his arm?' asked Gavin. Maggie and Baedecker looked at each other and shook their heads. 'Track marks,' said Gavin. 'He's on something hard.' From the other campfire across the meadow came a sudden burst of laughter and a blast of music from a tape player. 'I hope Tommy comes back over soon,' said Deedee.
'Let's tell ghost stories around the fire,' suggested Maggie.
Gavin shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'Nothing supernatural or demonic. What do you say we sing camp songs?'
'Great,' said Maggie, smiling at Baedecker.
Gavin and Deedee led them in a round of 'Kum Ba Yah' while from across the darkened meadow came laughter and the taped sounds of Billy Idol singing 'Eyes without a Face.'
On Thursday evening Baedecker had been in the Gavins' family room, planning the weekend backpacking trip with them, when the front doorbell rang. Gavin had excused himself to answer it, and Baedecker was listening to Deedee tell about the problem with Tommy and his girlfriend when a voice said, 'Hello, Richard.' Baedecker looked up and stared. It was impossible that Maggie Brown was standing there in Tom Gavin's family room but there she was, wearing the same white cotton dress she had worn when they had toured the Taj Mahal together. Her hair was shorter, bleached blonder by sunlight, but the tanned and freckled face was the same, the green eyes were the same. Even the slight, somehow pleasing gap between the front teeth attested to the fact that it was, indeed, Maggie Brown. Baedecker stared.
Gavin said, 'The lady asked if she'd come to the right house to find the famous astronaut Richard E. Baedecker. I said sho' ‘nuff.' Later, while Tom and Deedee watched television, Baedecker and Maggie took a walk down the Pearl Street Mall. Baedecker had come to Boulder once before — a five-day visit in 1969 when their team of eight rookie astronauts had studied geology there and used the university's Fiske Planetarium for astrogation exercises — and the mall had not existed then. Pearl Street, in the heart of old Boulder, had been just another dusty, heavily trafficked western street, populated with drugstores, discount clothing stores, and family restaurants. Now it had been turned into a four-block walking mall, shaded by trees, landscaped with rolling hills and flowers, and bordered by expensive little shops where the cheapest thing one could buy was a single-dip Häagen-Dazs ice cream cone for $1.50. In the two blocks Baedecker and Maggie had already walked, they had passed five street musicians, a chanting Hare Krishna group, a four-person juggling act, a lone tightrope walker stringing his wire between two kiosks, and an ethereal young man wearing only a burlap robe and a gold pyramid on his head.
'Why did you come?' Baedecker asked.
Maggie looked at him, and Baedecker felt a strange sensation, as if a cool hand had suddenly cusped the back of his neck. 'You called me,' she said.
Baedecker stopped. Nearby a man was playing a violin with more enthusiasm than skill. His violin case lay open on the ground with two dollar bills and three quarters in it. 'I called to see how you were,' Baedecker said. 'How Scott was when you saw him last. I just wanted to make sure you got back from India all right. When the girl at the dorm said that you were still visiting your family, I decided not to leave a message. How did you know it was me? How on earth did you find me?' Maggie smiled, and there was a hint of mischief in her green eyes. 'No mystery, Richard. One, I knew it was you. Two, I called your company in St. Louis. They told me you'd recently resigned and moved away, but no one seemed to know where you'd gone until I talked to Teresa in Mr. Prescott's office. She found the emergency forwarding address you'd left. I had the weekend off. Here I am.' Baedecker blinked. 'Why?' Maggie sat on a low redwood bench, and Baedecker sat down next to her. A breeze rustled the leaves above them and set lamplight and shadow dancing across them both. Half a block away there was a burst of applause as the tightrope walker did something interesting. 'I wanted to see how your search was going,' she said.