“Hey, I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.”
“With your sense of humor, that could be dangerous.”
Minelli shrugged and spread his arms out to the sun. “Ultraviolet rays, do your worst. I don’t give a fuck anymore.”
They followed the asphalt road for two miles, past the Three Brothers, then took a trail for another mile and stood in the El Capitan meadow, looking up at the massive ancient wall of gray granite. A pale streak showed where a sheet of rock had broken off in 1990, revealing unweathered surface.
“It is magnificent. I haven’t been here in ten, twelve years,” Minelli said. “Why’d you come?”
“Childhood memories. Best place on Earth.”
Minelli nodded emphatically. “Wherever I am right now is the best place on Earth, but this is better than most. I don’t see anybody up there. Where are they?”
Edward held up a small pair of field binoculars. “Look for ants trailing ropes and bags,” he said. “There’s five or six up there today, I hear.”
“Christ,” Minelli said, shading his eyes. “I see a black spot. No. It’s a blue spot. Color of my sleeping bag. Is that one?”
Edward drew a line with his finger from the tiny speck of blue. “Look above that a couple of degrees. Here.” He handed Minelli the binoculars. Minelli swept them back and forth in decreasing arcs and stopped, brows rising above the eyepieces. “Got him. Or her. Just hanging there.”
“There’s another above that one,” Edward said. “They must be a team. You can barely see the ropes between them.”
“How long does it take to get to the top?”
“A day, someone told me. Maybe longer. Sometimes they overnight up there, hanging in a bag, or on a ledge if they’re lucky.”
Minelli returned the binoculars. “Makes me queasy just thinking about it.”
Edward shook his head. “I don’t know. I could get into it. Think of the accomplishment. Standing up on top, looking out over everything. Be like building a skyscraper and knowing it was yours.”
Minelli made a dubious face. “What else is happening here? The place is deserted.”
“Practically. There’s a group meeting in the amphitheater at Curry Village this evening. A band is holding a concert tomorrow evening. The rangers are really loose. Some of them are giving tours on the weekend.”
“Everybody’s staying home. Mr. and Mrs. Mom-and-dad huddling next to their TVs, huh?”
Edward nodded, then raised the binoculars, spotting another climber. “Do you blame them?”
“No,” Minelli said quietly. “If I had a home or anybody I cared about — a woman, I mean — that’s where I’d be. I said good-bye to my sister and mom. They don’t know what the hell’s happening. They’re too ignorant to be scared. Mom says, ‘God will take care of us. We’re his children.’ Maybe He will. But if He doesn’t, I’m with you.
I don’t hold grudges. I can still admire the Old Dude’s masterworks.”
“It might be nice to be ignorant,” Edward said, lowering the binoculars.
Minelli shook his head adamantly. “At the end, I want to know what’s happening. I don’t want that…panic, when it comes. I want to know and sit and watch as much of it as I can. Maybe that’s the best seat in the house.” He pointed to the mottled rock face. “Up on top somewhere.”
Since Edward’s tent cabin had two bunks, he offered one to Minelli, but he turned it down. “Look,” he said, “they’re not even charging for them now. I asked down at the village and the fellows there say go ahead, sleep in one, just keep it clean yourself. Me, I’m going to want someone of the opposite sex with me when it happens. How about you?”
“That would be nice,” Edward agreed.
“All right, then. We party together, find women — some smart women, I mean, who know what’s going on as much as we do — and we party some more. I brought some food in with me, and the village store is stocked to the rafters with beer and wine and frozen food. We’re going to have a good time.”
At dusk, they showered and put on clean clothes and walked to the amphitheater, passing the wood-frame cabins. A middle-aged couple sat in folding chairs before the open door of a cabin, listening to a portable radio turned down low. They nodded greetings to each other.
“Going to the meeting?” Edward asked.
The man shook his head. “Not tonight,” he said. “It’s too peaceful tonight.”
“You’ll hear it from here, anyway,” Minelli warned.
The man and woman smiled and shooed them away.
“Tell us if there’s anything interesting.”
“Casual,” Minelli commented to Edward as they passed the Curry Village administration building and general store.
The valley was wrapped in cool shadow. Straying clouds obscured the tops of Half Dome and the Royal Arches. Edward zipped up his suede jacket. The amphitheater — benches arranged in curves before an elevated log and wood-beam stage — was full, people of all ages milling while engineers worked on the sound system. The loudspeakers popped and hummed; echoes of the crowd and the electronic noises bounced back at varying intervals from several directions. They found a bench halfway out from the stage and sat, watching the others, being watched in turn. A scruffy gray-bearded man of about sixty-five in a khaki bush jacket offered them unopened cans from a half-empty case of Coors and they accepted, popping and sipping as the gathering came to order.
A tall middle-aged park ranger climbed onto the stage and stood before the microphone, raising the stand to her level. “Hello,” she said, smiling.
The audience replied in kind, a low, warm murmur.
“My name — some of you know me already — is Elizabeth Rowell. There are about three hundred and fifty of us in the Yosemite now, and a few more coming in each day. I think we all know why we’re here. We’re all kind of surprised there aren’t more here, but some of us understand that, too. This is my home, and I plan on staying home.” She thrust out her jaw and looked around the audience. “So do others, and not many people live here year-around, as I do. Those of you who have left your homes to come here, you’re welcome to stay.
“We’re awfully lucky. Looks like the weather is going to be warm. It may drizzle off and on, but there’s not going to be much rain and no snow at all for a week or so, and all the passes are open. I just wanted to say that the park rules still apply, and we’re all behaving as if things are normal. If you need help, we’re fully staffed with rangers. Park police are on duty. We haven’t had any trouble, and we don’t expect any. You’re good folks.”
The man with the Coors box smiled and raised his can to that.
“Now, I am here basically to introduce folks. First, there’s Jackie Sandoval. Some of you know her already. She’s volunteered to be our spokesperson, sort of, tonight and for the rest of our stay. Jackie?”
A small, slender woman with long black hair and doll-like features came on stage. Rowell lowered the microphone for her.
“Hello,” she said, and again the warm sound emanated from the crowd in the amphitheater. “We’re here to celebrate, aren’t we?” Silence. “I think we are. We’re here to celebrate how far we’ve come, and to count our blessings. If what the experts tell us is true, we have three to four weeks to live in this wilderness, to appreciate the beauty and to think back on our lives. How many have had a chance for that kind of retrospective?
“We are a community — not just all of us here, but people everywhere. Some of us have stayed at home, and others have come here, perhaps because we recognize that all of Earth is our home. Each night, if we wish, if we all agree, we’ll gather in the amphitheater and share our dinner, perhaps have people sing for us; we’ll be a family. As Elizabeth said, all are welcome. I noticed some bikers camped at Sunnyside. They haven’t caused any trouble, I’ve been told, and they are welcome. Maybe for once in our history we can all be together, and appreciate what we can share. Tonight, I’ve asked Mary and Tony Lampedusa to sing for us, and then there’s going to be a dance at the Yosemite Village visitor center. I hope you’ll come.