“There, now.” Sheila soothed Martha, holding her close. “I’ve got you. I’m here with you now.”
Martha’s sobs eased. Sheila took a tissue from the pocket of her down coat, handed it to Martha, and walked with her down the drive to Harold and Martha’s motor home, an arm wrapped around her waist. The two women stood beside the coach, facing the site of Harold’s fatal fall, Martha’s head on Sheila’s shoulder.
Sheila removed her arm from around Martha and massaged the back of Martha’s neck. Martha stepped away and entered the motor home. Sheila followed, closing the door behind them.
Nora said to Chuck from inside the car, her hands on the wheel, “Your mother is a gem. An absolute lifesaver.” She drove on into the campground, parked in front of the motor home she shared with Frank, and disappeared inside.
Chuck shook his head to himself as he walked back through the campground. George was a client of his mother. Martha and Nora were, too, it appeared. Who wasn’t a client of hers?
A flicker of movement high on the rock ridge between the campground and park road caught his eye. He looked up to see a man standing atop the ridge. As Chuck watched, the man ducked behind the point of stone where Rosie had found Pasta Alfredo, and where Chuck and his family had left the container of pasta last night.
Chuck ran to the base of the ridge and strode up the sloped stone ramp. He reached the crown of the ridge and stood with his hands on his hips, taking deep breaths.
The homeless man sat fifty feet away, facing Chuck, his back to the stone pinnacle. The pasta container rested on the stone beside him. The man was dressed in the same ragged clothes he’d worn when he’d come to Harold’s aid yesterday. He cradled a calico house cat in his lap. The man made no attempt to conceal himself, but he didn’t look directly at Chuck, either.
Chuck approached along the top of the ridge. “Hey, there,” he said between deep breaths when he reached the homeless man.
The man bowed his head, his face to the cat in his arms. The calico was skinny, with bald spots showing between matted tufts of fur.
“Thanks for letting me join you up here,” Chuck said.
The man stroked the house cat with his thin fingers, saying nothing.
“Would you like to tell me your name?” Chuck asked. “Mine’s Chuck. But I bet you already know that.”
The man spoke a single word, his head still bent over the calico. “Glen.”
Easing himself to a sitting position next to Glen, Chuck rested his hands on his raised knees, his back to the stone hoodoo, and glanced sideways. The portion of Glen’s face not covered by his beard was dark brown and scorched by the sun.
Chuck stared out across the desert. “How’d you like the pasta?”
Glen scratched the cat’s ears.
“I realize you showed yourself to me up here for a reason. What is it you know that you want me to know? What do you want to tell me?”
Glen said nothing.
“Thanks for helping Harold, the man who fell from the ladder,” Chuck said. “You sure got there fast.”
Glen’s body spasmed. The calico leapt from his arms and scurried from sight behind the point of rock. Glen scrabbled crab-like away from Chuck, the seat of his pants sliding on the rough stone surface. He eyed Chuck from several feet away, his gaze centered on Chuck’s chest.
“What is it? What’d I say?” Chuck asked.
Glen spun and sat with his back to Chuck.
“I take it you don’t want to be thanked for what you did,” Chuck said. “But why did you let me see you just now? Why didn’t you run off when I came up here?”
Glen slowly raised his hand and extended a trembling finger west, toward toppled Landscape Arch.
“Right,” Chuck said. “I followed your tracks to the arch yesterday. But I’m betting you already know that, don’t you?”
Glen shifted until he sat facing Chuck. He glanced Chuck’s direction and away.
Chuck decided the glance was a “yes.”
“Did you go to the arch for a specific reason?”
Again, Glen glanced at Chuck. Yes.
“Did the reason you went to the arch have to do with me?”
Glen looked out across the desert. No.
Chuck frowned. Glen had hiked off-trail across the desert to the site of the toppled arch sometime after the rangers and first responders had returned from the site with Megan’s body.
“Did it have to do with the rangers and what they did or didn’t find out there?”
Glen turned his face to Chuck. This time, he held Chuck’s gaze for a full second, his dark brown eyes blazing, before looking down at the bare rock between them.
“Okay,” Chuck said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Glen knew something about what had happened at the site of the collapsed arch—but what?
Rosie broke into Chuck’s train of thought.
“Chuuu-uck!” she called out from the campground below, breaking his name into two syllables.
Pushing himself to his feet, Chuck walked to the rounded edge of the ridge. Rosie stood in the campground drive below, her hand to her forehead, her head swiveling.
“Up here!” Chuck called to her.
She peered up at him on the ridge. “Mamá says to come,” she yelled. “It’s time for breakfast.”
“I’ll be right down,” Chuck told her. “Just a few more minutes.”
But when he turned back to the stone pinnacle, only the pasta container remained. Glen was gone.