The two galloping horses left a cloud of blowing snow in the sagebrush as they ascended the rutted road. The winter sun sparkled on the layer of frost covering the burned-out trailer ahead.
“Whoa,” Gabriel said, pulling the reigns. His horse, Fool, snorted like a steam engine in the frozen air, kicking powder snow as it slowed to a walk.
“Do you see it?” Snowfeather asked.
“No,” Gabriel said as his daughter guided her horse to the yard behind the trailer.
“Here,” she said, dismounting her horse, Wind 2, in a single easy movement. She looked down at a tiny grave.
“Hah. He did it, after all,” Gabriel said grunting. His bulky form made a small spray of snow as he dismounted, matching only Snowfeather’s speed, without her grace.
“It’s a fine grave, don’t you think?” she said, looking at the small, carved pole, and the tiny cross.
“I don’t think he was much of a Christian,” Gabriel said, “but it is a fine grave. Cousin Steve did well.”
Snowfeather wiped the frost from a tiny brass plaque with her gloved hand. “See the inscription?” she asked.
Gabriel leaned down, wiped his prescription sunglasses on his vest, then squinted. “Here Lies Fat Fox. He Died Bravely in His Master’s Service.”
“He sure did that,” Gabriel said, his eyes welling. He turned his face away.
Snowfeather pretended not to notice her father’s tears and went over to the trailer. She tried the door and it responded with a groan of resistance. “Do you want to look inside? There isn’t much left.”
“In a minute,” Gabriel said as he trudged through the tiny backyard. He could hear his daughter’s footsteps inside the trailer. “They want me to run for the Senate again,” he called out.
“Will you?” Snowfeather asked, peering out the broken trailer window.
“No.”
“You’re finally retiring then?”
“No. Find anything in there?”
“Look for yourself.”
Then Gabriel entered the trailer, his breath making a flickering white cloud in the shadow-streaked light. Only the steel table legs remained where he had once sat with his Fat Fox. The electronics had slagged into an unrecognizable mess. A silver coffee thermos lay in a corner, almost flat. A broken ceramic cup lay beside it, clean as new. “I’m amazed the trailer itself didn’t melt,” he said.
“Me too,” Snowfeather said.
“Steel. A lot of stainless steel. It was a good trailer.”
“The modern Indian’s teepee.”
“True. But all the aluminum stuff melted.” Gabriel bent over, moving a cracked bowl with the toe of his boot. “Fat Fox’s dish,” he said. “I think I’ll leave it.”
A moment later they stopped to contemplate the front yard. “Just what are you going to do?” Snowfeather asked.
“I think we’ll keep the ranch. Maybe build a house on this spot. Alice wants to do that.”
“Good. I’ll have a place to visit.”
“And bring the grandchildren, right?”
Snowfeather smiled. “I meant—what are you going to do with your free time if you are not retiring?” she said, avoiding the question.
“What are you smiling about, Princess? I know that look.”
“Let’s just say that grandchildren are not out of the question. Now—no more questions, Dad. What are you going to do?”
“I am still needed, I think. This is not over. This kind of lunacy never quite is. Berker is still alive on life support. Why? I’ll never quite understand white-eye’s justice. Keeping a mass murderer alive long enough to be executed? But Berker is no longer a threat, except as a symbol, I suppose. Think of it: She is a vegetable…a perfect example of her cult’s vision for humanity.”
“But what can you do, Dad?”
“Same question I tortured myself with—back when we were on that camp together, Princess. I hear that the G-A-N is still very active in Europe. And somebody’s got to keep this administration in line, before Smith Junior paves over the remaining wilderness in his post-environmentalist zeal.”
“How do you propose to stay in the game?”
“I have a plan. Wanna see my new toy?” Gabriel trudged toward the horses. He patted Fool.
Snowfeather stroked Wind 2 while Gabriel pulled a heavy satchel from his saddlebag. “This is courtesy of NewsWeb and Edge Medical.” He set the bag in the snow. “It is my own, state-of-the art AutoCam kit. Three cameras and a real-time auto-editor. That reporter, Max Cahoon, recommended this one as the best for the price.”
Snowfeather walked over for a closer look as Gabriel zipped open the largest compartment.
“Dad, I’m not saying a word on-camera.”
“Be that way,” he said.
——
Half an hour later, they stood together with the fence at their backs, the horses just in view on the side.
Gabriel glowed with pride in his new AutoCam unit. With its built-in satellite transmitter, it stood on four black legs in the middle of the roadway, flanked by two other cameras on tripods. The whole rig looked to Gabriel like a Martian invader from an H.G. Wells’ story.
The camera lights went red, and Gabriel cleared his throat. Tiny servo motors whirred. The air was still. Gabriel gripped the concealed remote in his ungloved right hand.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Live.
SatCom On: 12:00 Hours M.S.T.
AutoCam: Pan. Frame scene.
Viewers saw a large man in a blue parka standing next to a beautiful, younger woman with a crimson vest and scarf, sun lancing off frost on the lodgepole pine fence, two horses stamping their hooves and snorting in the icy air.
“This is Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. And this is Snowfeather, my daughter—of whom I am eternally proud.
“There is good news…and a caution.
“People against the environment…and environmentalists against the people: These are both forms of madness. The very worst madness was a cult that tried to extinguish the human race in order to save the world. That dangerous idea has been defeated… For now. Those who would extinguish nature have not been defeated… For now.
The AutoCam zoomed out.
“By our relationship with nature, we define ourselves and our future. Here on this Idaho desert, far from the edge of the last bit of tilled soil, hundreds of miles from the nearest skyscraper, nature is intact. In our relationship to it we still may become whole.
“But look around you. What do you hear? The hum of machines? What do you feel? The pressure of too many people competing for too little room? Where is your peace? Where is your joy? Where does your spirit soar?”
Gabriel opened the fence and walked toward their horses followed by Snowfeather.
The AutoCam zoomed in on their figures approaching the horses.
“We all rejoice in the recent victory of brave sane men and women over deranged evil minds and their chilling agenda,” Gabriel said. “We will never forget those who died to give us this second chance. But we must never forget that it is a second chance. As my friend, Dr. John Owen, says—the political order is just in remission. The disasters that drove some evil people to attempt genocide may be allowed to happen again.”
Father and daughter mounted their horses.
Gabriel faced the camera directly as it zoomed in on his face. “Do I speak for you? I think our spirits are only as open as our link to the openness of nature. When you confine one, you imprison the other. Do I speak for you?”
“Our task, for this generation and all those who follow us, has just begun.”
The recording ended and the horses began to trot up the road. Gabriel turned to his daughter. “Hah! That was pretty darn good, don’t you think?” Gabriel was very pleased with himself. “Maybe I have a career in the movies.” His horse pranced on for a moment, apparently caught up in the cinematic moment.
Snowfeather spurred Wind 2 until she was alongside her father. “Ah, Dad… Didn’t you forget something?”
“What?” Gabriel said, still imagining his movie debut.
“Sorry I’m late!” Another horse and rider had appeared at the bend in the road. The figure clopped toward them, backlit against the glare of sun on snow.
Gabriel squinted at the approaching figure. It was John. Gabriel coaxed Fool into a brisk trot.
Snowfeather smiled and waved at John. “Is that your new horse?”
“Snowfeather, meet Prince!” John shouted. When Fool pulled up next to Prince, Dr. Owen added quietly. “Gabriel—maybe you should go back and pick up your fancy new broadcast equipment before somebody runs off with it. You might need it, in case you don’t land that movie contract.”
The End