MERILEE ROWLING had put her foot down and I had accepted the gesture like an ant in a long, curving trail to honey.
I handed her my father's camera loaded with a fresh roll of film. The sun was only halfway up the sky so the light was still good.
"Let's go to that rundown barn," she directed.
She was referring to the lean-to that the Lamberts had built as a shelter for their ponies. Made from cedar, it was never painted, so it looked older than it actually was. There were three stalls and a tack room inside, and the lock on the tack room had left with the Lamberts. It was an appealing set for someone interested in making interesting photographs.
"Stand over there," she directed, in front of an open stall. "Now put your arm on the stall door and gaze out to your right."
"This feels weird," I said.
"This is art," Merilee Rowling insisted. "It's supposed to feel weird.
"Okay, ready?" she said. "One, two, three—oh, crap!"
Merilee Rowling had dropped the camera onto a concrete base poured for a hitching post that had never been installed. On impact, the film popped out of the back, exposed to the sunlight, and the lens cracked like a dried duck egg.
"Damn!" she said. "Why did you move?"
"I didn't move," I replied. "I'm still right here with my arm on the stall door."
"Well, somebody moved," she insisted. "Maybe it was your mysterious Indian."
"Is the camera okay?" I asked.
"Well," Merilee Rowling answered, "it might need a little adjustment."
I examined the case for damage.
I sighted through the viewfinder. On a single-lens reflex camera such as this one, the viewfinder reveals exactly what the lens sees, and what the lens now saw was a mixed-up, multifaceted universe.
It was exactly like looking through a kaleidoscope.
Merilee's image was broken into a star-shaped pattern of bits and pieces and the weedy fields around her appeared as a tan, circular sky.
If I changed the adjustment, say from macro to telephoto, the quiltlike pattern changed also, but the problem with the picture did not go away.
My ghost camera—my father's ghost camera—had been what an adjuster from State Farm Insurance (Auto-Home-Life) might classify as "totaled."
"Who sent you?" I asked angrily.
"Sorry," Merilee Rowling said.
"Here," I replied petulantly, handing her the pony talisman that Chief Leopard Frog had recently given to me. "This is for you. It was handmade by Chief Leopard Frog. Now, if you'll ask me the questions you need to ask about him, I'll do my best to answer."
"Can he fly?" she giggled, pocketing the amulet. "Does he have X-ray vision?"
She went running into the pony barn, and for some reason performed a cartwheel.
"How long are you planning to stay?" I asked her.
"How long would you like me to stay?" she replied coquettishly.
"Are you really seventeen?" I asked.
"I can prove it. It's on my driver's license," she answered. "Are you really nineteen?"
"No," I answered. "But I'm old enough to know what you're up to."
"And what is that, Mr. Wise Guy?" she flirted.
"You're trying to get me to make you as famous as Chief Leopard Frog and you don't mind wrecking my life in the process, starting with my camera," I observed.
Merilee Rowling put her hands on her hips and stared at me.
"You are a smart boy," she observed. "Will you guard my room again tonight?"
Man, was I ever in over my head.
Help, Chief Leopard Frog! I cried inside. Help!
"I guess so," I agreed, ever the weakling.
Walking home I spied a silver Yukon speeding down the dusty gravel road in the distance. In most parts of the world this would mean nothing. But if you were in Antarctica, let's say, it would be an event worth noting in your daily log. As I have previously suggested, Paisley has a lot in common with Antarctica, except instead of penguins we have locusts. But like other remote spots on the globe, we have very few people, and thus very few cars.
"Look at that hot rod go," Merilee Rowling observed. "How could anybody around here be in a hurry? I mean, what's the rush?"
"I think it all depends on whether they're coming or going," I suggested.
But of course I knew.
I recognized the car.
It was the Baldersons. And, no doubt, Maureen Balderson was inside.
I had a lot of explaining to do.