THE SUN WAS UP. Dim green light filtered through the walls of the tent, which smelled of sleeping bags and hiking boots and moisture. They opened the flaps every day but the tent never lost its hothouse feel. Tilly woke this morning missing Steven. Not memories; she wasn't thinking. The surface of her body missed him. Her skin. Where's Steven? it asked. Where's his mouth? Where're his hands? She subst.i.tuted her own hands, but her body knew the difference. And there was another difference, which she recognized, that she would do this in front of Alice now. As if Alice had become part of her like an arm, like Tilly's left arm, less intimate than the right but part of her all the same.

Although really she believed Alice was still asleep. Sleep was the only escape for Alice now. Tilly would have felt very guilty if she woke Alice from it early. She listened to Alice breathe and tried to guess if Alice were awake or not. Alice moved so seldom; her body was landscape.

Tilly would have liked to get up, but this would have woken Alice for sure, and anyway the tent was clogged with the sleeping mats and bags, with the unused stove, with Tilly's camera cases, and with Alice's maps. Tilly could only stand up straight in the very middle of the tent. She had bouts of claustrophobia. Everything Tilly knew, everything Tilly could imagine, was either inside or outside this tent. The two sets were infinitely inclusive. The two sets were mutually exclusive. Except for Alice. Alice could belong to both.

The size of the tent had never bothered her before, when she could come and go as she pleased. In actual fact the tent was probably no smaller than the bedroom she had had as a child, and it had never seemed small to her either, although you couldn't even open the bedroom door completely; the chest of drawers was behind it. The bedroom was a safe place, a place where you were cared for and protected. You could depend on this so confidently you didn't even notice it. As Tilly grew older she began to see the shapes and shadows of another world. A girl in the sixth grade at Tilly's school was followed home by a man in a white car. Tilly was told at the dinner table that she mustn't talk to strangers. Angela Ruiz, who lived next door, had heard from her cousin in Chicago how some boy she knew was beaten with a pair of pliers by his own father while his mother watched. In Life magazine Tilly saw a picture of a little boy and his two sisters, but there was something wrong about the way they looked, and the article said that their mother hadn't wanted anyone to know she had children so she'd hidden them in the bas.e.m.e.nt for five years. Without sunshine, without exercise, their growth had been stunted. They were bonsai children. In the last week their vaguely misshapen bodies had returned to Tilly's dreams.

In bidos, where children at twelve play soccer and have s.e.x, the man who sold them supplies had told them a story. A cautionary tale-Tilly could see this in retrospect. It involved the freshwater dolphin called the boto. The boto could take a woman, penetrating her in the water, or in human male form on sh.o.r.e, or even in her dreams. She would grow pale and die in childbirth, if she lasted that long, and her child would be deformed-having the smooth face of the father, his rubber skin, a blowhole on the top of the head where the fontanel should be.

Tilly had moved her pad so that it was, in relation to the door, in the same spot as her bed was in her bedroom. Alice never mentioned it, though she'd had to move Alice's pad, too. Alice was gone at the time. They took Alice out every single day. It was hard not to envy Alice for this, no matter how she looked when she came back.

An unseen bird, a trogon, began to shriek nearby. The sound rose above the other rain-forest noises in the same way a police siren always buries the sounds of normal traffic. Shhh. The door was a curtain of nylon which whispered when the wind blew. The faint smell of mimosa, just discernible over the smell of sleep and sweat and last night's urine, pa.s.sed through the tent and was gone. Alice's pad was as far away from the door as it could be. Tilly propped herself on one elbow to look at Alice, who was staring up at the ceiling. "Alice," Tilly said. Any word you spoke in this little room was spoken too loudly. Shhh said the door.

"I'm still here," said Alice. "Did you think I might not be?" She moved and caught herself in mid-movement. Her hair was snarled in the back. She had stopped braiding it weeks ago when her last rubber band had snapped. "My back is sore," she said. "I ache all over." She looked directly at Tilly. "I thought of another one. The boy in the bubble."

This was a game Alice had made up to pa.s.s the time. She and Tilly were making a list of famous prisoners. The longer the game went on, the more flexible the category became. Tilly wanted to count Howard Hughes. You could be self-imprisoned, Tilly argued. But Alice said no, you weren't a prisoner if there wasn't a jailer, and the jailer had to be someone or something on the outside. Outside the tent something shifted and coughed.

When the camp was violated, Alice and Tilly had a.s.sumed the trespa.s.sers were Indians-what else could they think?-although it had surprised them. A number of the local tribes were considered low contact but hardly untouched. There were the Hixkaryana, the Kaxuiana, the Tirio. They had shotguns and motorboats. They had been to the cities. If you mentioned Michael Jackson to them they would nod and let you know you were not the first. The man who advised them on supplies in bidos had been from the Tirio tribe. His advice, though lengthy, had been essentially indifferent; the spectacle of two women on holiday in the rain forest had aroused less comment than they expected. He had made one ominous observation in Portuguese. "It is quite possible," he had said, "to go into the forest as a young woman and come out very old."

Alice and Tilly should have gone to FUNAI for permission to visit the Indians, who were protected by the Brazilian government from curious tourists. But Alice was only interested in the terrain. She had hardly given the Indians a thought when she planned the trip. Steven had asked about them, but then Steven asked about everything. He was in New York City riding the subways and worrying about Tilly out here with the savages. Steven had been mugged twice last year.

Tilly had insisted on moving the camp after the intrusion, back from the river but not too far, since they still needed water and Alice was still taking measurements. It was a lot of work for nothing. Tilly was setting up the tent again when she realized she was being watched.

From a distance they still looked like Indians. Tilly saw shadows of their shapes between the trees. They paced her when she went to the river for water. She wondered how she'd ever be able to bathe again, knowing or not knowing they were there. She wouldn't even brush her teeth. She went back to camp and argued with Alice about setting a watch at night.

By then it was afternoon. Alice had made lunch. "We can decide that later," she said. "There will be plenty of time to decide that later." But later they came right into the camp, and they didn't look like Indians at all. Their heads were hairless and flattened uniformly in the back. The features on their faces were human enough to be recognizable: two eyes deep set into pockets of puffy skin and two nostrils flush with the rest of the face, expanding and contracting slightly when they breathed. Their mouths were large and mobile. They had a human mix of carnivorous and herbivorous teeth. If Tilly had only seen one she might have thought it a mutation of some sort, or the result of disease or accident. In books she had seen pictures of humans deformed to a similar degree. But these were all the same. They were aliens. She told Alice so.

Alice was not sure. There was nothing off-world about their clothing, drapes of an undyed loose weave, covering the same parts of the body that humans felt compelled to conceal. She pointed to the tampons, which dangled by their strings from cloth belts. "They've taken trophies," said Alice. "They've got our scalps. Doesn't that strike you as rather primitive for a race with interstellar capabilities?" Alice invited them into the tent.

Tilly did not follow. Tilly had the sense to be terrified. She was ready to run, had a clear path to the river, hardly stopped to notice that flight would have meant abandoning Alice. But there were more and more of them. She never had the chance. On the way into the tent one veered toward Tilly. She ducked away, but the arm was longer than she expected; the hand landed on her shoulder. There was an extra flexibility in the fingers, an additional joint, but Tilly didn't notice it then. The hand was cooler than her own skin. She could feel it through her cotton shirt and it pulsed, or else that was her own heartbeat she felt. She was so frightened she fainted. It was a decision she made; she remembered this later. A blackening void behind her eyes and her own voice warning her that she was going to faint. Shall we stop? the voice asked, and Tilly said, No, no, let's do it, let's get out of here.

The clasps of the tent door clicked together like rosary beads as it was brushed to one side. Breakfast had arrived. The dishes were from Tilly's and Alice's own kits. Tilly's was handed to her. Alice's was set on the floor by the door. One of them stayed to watch as Alice and Tilly ate.

Tilly's plate had a tiny orange on it, porridge made of their own farinha, and a small cooked fish. There were crackers from their own store. Alice was given only the crackers and fewer of them. From the very first there had been this difference in their treatment. Of course, Tilly shared her food with Alice. Tilly had to move onto Alice's pad to do this; Alice would never come to Tilly. She made Tilly beg her to eat some of Tilly's breakfast, because there was never enough food for two people. "What kind of fish do you think this is?" Tilly asked Alice, taking a bit of it and making Alice take a bite.

"It's a dead fish," Alice answered. Her voice was stone.

Tilly was very hungry afterward. Alice was hungry, too, had to be, but she didn't say so. "Thank you, Tilly," Alice would say. And then two more would come, and the three of them would take Alice.

Tilly was always afraid they would not bring her back. It was a selfish thing to feel, but Tilly could not help it. Tilly cared about Alice, and Alice should belong to the set of things inside the tent. Everything else Tilly cared about did not. Like Steven. She missed Steven. He was so nice. That's what everyone said about Steven. Alice was always pointing this out to Tilly. The thing about Steven, Alice was always saying, was that he was just so nice. Alice didn't quite believe in him. "And women don't want nice men anyway," said Alice. "Let's be honest."

"I do," said Tilly.

"Then why aren't you married to Steven?" Alice asked. "Why are you here in the rain forest instead of home married to your nice man? Because there's no adventure with Steven. No intensity. The great thing about men, the really appealing thing, is that you can't believe a word they say. They fascinate. They compel." Alice knew a variety of men. Some of them had appeared to be nice men initially. Alice always found them out, though. Occasionally they turned out to be married men. "I don't know why so many women complain that they can't find men willing to commit," Alice said. "Mine are always overcommitted."

Steven must be just starting to wonder if everything was all right. A small worry at first, but it would grow. No sight of them in bidos, he would hear. Where they were expected four weeks ago. Perhaps the boat would be found, covered by then in the same purple vines that choked the rest of the riverbank. Would Steven come himself to look for her? Steven had taken her to the plane, and at just the last minute, with his arms around her, he had asked her not to go. Tilly could feel his arms around her arms if she tried very hard. He could have asked earlier. He could have held her more tightly. He had been so nice about the trip. Tilly thought of him all day long, and it made her lonely. She never dreamed of him at night, though; her dreams had shadows with elongated arms and subtly distorted shapes. Steven had no place in that world. And even without him, even with the dreams, night was better.

A storm of huge green dragonflies battered themselves against the walls of the tent, but they couldn't get in. It sounded like rain. All around her, outside, her jailers grunted as they drove the insects away with their hands. They were in front of the tent and they were behind the tent; there would be no more escape attempts. Alice was no longer even planning any. Alice was no longer planning anything. To convince herself that Alice would be coming back, Tilly played Alice's game. She sat still with her legs crossed, combing out her hair with her fingers, and tried to think of another prisoner for their list. Her last suggestion had come from a story she suddenly remembered her father telling her. It was about a mathematician who'd been sentenced to death for a crime Tilly didn't recall. On the night before his execution he'd tried to write several proofs out, but very quickly. The proofs were hard to read and sometimes incomplete. Generations of mathematicians had struggled with them. Some of these problems were still unsolved. Tilly's father had been a mathematician. Steven was an industrial artist.

Alice had told Tilly she had the story wrong. "He wasn't a prisoner and he wasn't sentenced to death," Alice said. "He was going to fight a duel and he was very myopic so he knew he'd lose." She wouldn't count Tilly's mathematician. The last prisoner of Tilly's whom Alice had been willing to count was Mary, Queen of Scots. This was way back when they were first detained. Tilly was just the tiniest bit irritated by this.

The river drummed, birds cried, and far away Tilly heard the roaring of the male howler monkeys, like rushing water or wind at this distance. Bugs rattled and clicked. Each ordinary sound was a betrayal. How quickly the forest accepted an alien presence. It was like plunging a knife into water; the water re-formed instantly about the blade, the break was an illusion. Of course, the forest had responded to Tilly and Alice in much the same way. And now they were natives, local fauna to an expedition from the stars. Or so Tilly guessed. "Our only revenge," she had told Alice, "is that they're bound to think we're indigenous. We're going to wreak havoc with their data. Centuries from now a full-scale invasion will fail because all calculations will have been based on this tiny error."

Alice had offered two alternative theories. Like Tilly's, they were straight from the tabloids. The first was that their captors were the descendants of s.p.a.ce aliens. Marooned in the forest here, they had devolved into their current primitive state. The second was that Tilly and Alice had stumbled into some Darwinian detour on the evolutionary ladder. Something about this particular environment favored embedded eyes and corkscrew fingers. It was a closed gene pool. "And let's keep it closed," Alice had added. She smiled and shook her head at Tilly. Her braids flew. "South American Headshrinking s.p.a.ce Aliens Forced Me to Have Elvis's Baby," Alice said.

At first Alice had kept diary entries of their captivity. She did a series of sketches, being very careful with the proportions. She told Tilly to take pictures but Tilly was afraid, so Alice took them herself with Tilly's cameras. The film sat curled tightly in small dark tubes, waiting to make Alice and Tilly's fortunes when they escaped or were let go or were rescued. Alice had tallied the days in the tent on her graphs and talked as if they would be released soon. There was no way to guess how soon because there was no way to guess why they were being held. Alice fantasized ways to escape. Tilly would have liked to ink the days off on the wall of the tent; this would have been so much more in the cla.s.sical tradition. Four straight lines and then a slash. A hieroglyphic of the human hand. A celebration of the opposable thumb. Anne Boleyn had six fingers. Tilly wondered how she had marked the walls of her cell.

The door clicked to the side. Tilly sat up with a start. One of them was entering, bent over, her dish in its hands. It was one of the three who had taken Alice. There was no mistaking it, because it wore Tilly's green sweater, the two arms tied round its neck in mock embrace, the body of the sweater draped on its back. The face belonged to a matinee horror monster, maybe the Phantom of the Opera. From the neck to the waist, largely because of her sweater, it could have been any freshman at any eastern university. From the waist down Tilly saw the rest of the sacklike gown, bare legs, bare feet. Monklike, only the legs were hairless. On the dish was a duplication of Tilly's breakfast. She stared at it, hardly able to believe in it. She had never been offered additional food before. The door rattled again as she was left alone. She took a tiny bit of the fish in her fingers. She looked at it. She put it in her mouth. She took another bite. And then another. The food was here, after all. Why shouldn't she eat it just because Alice was so hungry? How would it help Alice not to eat this food? Alice would want her to eat it. She ate faster and faster, licking her fingers. She ate the rind and seeds of the orange. She sc.r.a.ped the fish bones under her sleeping pad.

Alice was pale and tearful when she came back. She lay down, and her breath was a ragged series of quick inhalations. There were no marks on her. There never were. Just an agony about her face. "What did they do to you?" Tilly asked her, and Alice closed her eyes. "I mean, was it different today?" Tilly said. She sat beside Alice and stroked her hair until Alice's breathing had normalized.

Alice had her own question. "Why are they doing this?" Alice asked. Or she didn't ask it. The question was still there. "They don't try to talk to me. They don't ask me anything. I don't know what they want. They just hurt me. They're monsters," said Alice.

And then there was a silence for the other questions they asked only deep inside themselves. Why to me and not to you? Why to you and not to me?

When dinner came that night, there was nothing but crackers for both of them. Alice was given more than Tilly. This had never happened before. "Look at that," she said with the first lilt Tilly had heard in her voice in a long time. "Why do you suppose they are doing that?" She equalized the portions. "They will see that we always share," she told Tilly. "No matter what they do to us."

"I don't want any," Tilly said. "Really. After what they did to you today I'm sure you need food more than I do. Please. You eat it."

It made Alice angry. "You've always shared with me," Alice insisted. "Always. We share." She directed these last words toward the one who stayed to watch them eat. Tilly took the crackers. The sun went down. The birds quieted and the bugs grew louder. Tree frogs sang, incessantly alto. The world outside maintained a dreadful balance. Inside, the tent walls darkened, and they were left alone. Alice lay still. Tilly undressed completely. She climbed into her bag, which smelled of mildew, and missed Steven.

She had to urinate during the night. She waited and waited until she couldn't wait anymore, afraid she would wake Alice. Finally she slid out of her bag and crawled to the empty bucket that sat by the tent door. She tried to tilt the bucket so that the urine would make less noise hitting the bottom, but every sound she made was too loud in this room. Of course Alice would hear her and wonder. Alice rarely used the bucket at all now. Tilly wished she could empty the bucket before Alice saw it. She got back into her sleeping bag and missed Steven until she finally fell asleep, sometime in the morning.

When she woke up, she missed him again. Alice's eyes were open. "That teacher who killed that doctor," Tilly said. "The diet doctor."

"Jean Harris," said Alice. "I already said her."

"No, you didn't," said Tilly.

"I don't want to play anymore. It was a stupid game and it just upsets me. Why can't you forget it?" Of course the mornings were always tense for Alice. The day's ordeal was still ahead of her. Tilly tried not to mind anything Alice said in the mornings. But the truth was that Alice was often rather rude. Maybe that was why she was treated the way she was. Tilly was not rude, and n.o.body treated Tilly the way they treated Alice.

"I have another one," said Tilly. There was already a film of sweat on her forehead; the day was going to be hot. She climbed out of her sleeping bag and lay on top of it, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "And you certainly haven't said her. I can't remember her name, but she lived in Wales in the 1800s and she was famous for fasting. She lived for two years without eating food and without drinking water and people said it was a miracle and came to be blessed and brought her family offerings."

Alice said nothing.

"She was a little girl," Tilly said. "She never left her bed. Not for two years."

Alice looked away from her.

"There was a storm of medical controversy. A group of doctors finally insisted that no one could live for two years without food and water. They demanded a round-the-clock vigil. They hired nurses to watch every move the little girl made. Do you know this story?"

Alice was silent.

"The little girl began to starve. It was obvious that she had been eating secretly all along. I mean, of course she had been eating. The doctors all knew this. They begged her to eat now. But they wouldn't go away and let her do it in secret. They were not really very nice men. She refused food. She and her parents refused to admit that it had all been a hoax. The little girl starved to death because no one would admit it had all been a hoax," said Tilly. "What was she a prisoner of? Ask me. Ask me who her jailers were."

Shhh said the door.

"You must be very hungry," said Alice. "Diet doctors and fasting girls. I'm hungry, too. I wish you'd shut up." It wasn't a very nice thing for Alice to say.

Alice was given crackers for breakfast. Tilly had a Cayenne banana and their own dried jerky and some kind of fruit juice. Tilly sat beside Alice and made Alice take a bite every time Tilly took a bite. Alice didn't even thank her. When they finished breakfast, two more of them came and took Alice.

They brought Tilly coffee. There were sugar and limes and tinned sardines. There was a kind of bread Tilly didn't recognize. The loaf was shaped in a series of concentric circles from which the outer layers could be torn one at a time until the loaf was reduced to a single simple circle. It was very beautiful. Tilly was angry at Alice so she ate it all, and while she was eating it she realized for the first time that they loved her. That was why they brought her coffee, baked bread for her. But they didn't love Alice. Was this Tilly's fault? Could Tilly be blamed for this?

Tilly was not even hungry enough to eat the seeds of the limes. She lifted her pad to hide them with the fish bones. Many of the tiny bones were still attached to the fish's spine, even after Tilly had slept on them all night. It made her think of fairy tales, magic fish bones, and princesses who slept on secrets, and princes who were nice men or maybe they weren't; you really never got to know them at home. She could imagine the fish alive and swimming, one of those transparent fish with their feathered backbones and their trembling green hearts. No one should know you that well; no one should see inside you like that, Tilly thought. That was Alice's mistake, wearing her heart outside the way she did. Telling everybody what she thought of everything. And she was getting worse. Of course she didn't speak anymore, but it was easier and easier to tell what she was thinking. She felt a lot of resentment for Tilly. Tilly couldn't be blind to this. And for what? What had Tilly ever done? This whole holiday had been Alice's idea, not Tilly's. It was all part of Alice's plan to separate Tilly from Steven.

Tilly got out Alice's papers, looking to see if she'd written anything about Tilly in them. But Alice hadn't written anything for a couple of weeks. PD, the last entry ended. PD. Tilly traced it with her index finger. What did that mean?

When Alice came back, Tilly was shocked by the change in her. She was carried in and left, lying on her back on Tilly's mat, which was closer to the door, and she didn't move. She hardly looked like Alice anymore. She was fragile and edgeless, as if she had been rubbed with sandpaper. The old Alice was all edges. The new Alice was all bone. Her bones were more and more evident. It was a great mistake to show yourself so. "What does PD mean?" Tilly asked her.

"Get me some water," Alice whispered.

They kept a bucket full by the door next to the empty bucket which functioned as the toilet. A bug was floating in the drinking water, a large white moth with faint circles painted on its furry wings. If Tilly had seen it fall she would have rescued it. She doubted that Alice would have bothered. Alice was so different now. Alice would have enjoyed seeing the moth drown. Alice wanted everyone to be as miserable as she was. It was the only happiness Alice had. Tilly scooped the dead moth into the cup of water for Alice, to make Alice happy. She held the cup just out of Alice's reach. "First tell me what it means," she said.

Alice lay with her head tilted back. The words moved up and down the length of her throat. Her voice was very tired and soft. Shhh said the door. "It's a cartographer's notation." Her eyes were almost closed. In the small s.p.a.ce between the lids, Tilly could just see her eyes. Alice was watching the water. "It means position doubtful." Tilly helped her sit up, held the cup so she could drink. Alice lay back on the mat. "Prospects doubtful," said Alice. "Presumed dead," said Alice.

Outside Tilly heard the howler monkeys, closer today. She could almost distinguish one voice from the rest, a dominant pitch, a different rhythm. She had once stood close enough to a tribe of howler monkeys to connect each mouth with its own deafening noise. This was at the zoo in San Diego. In San Diego, Tilly had been the one on the outside.

It was so like Alice to just give up, thought Tilly. Not like Alice before, but certainly like Alice now. Alice now was completely different from Alice before. Living together like this had shown her what Alice was really like. This was probably what the South American Headshrinking s.p.a.ce Alien Children of the Boto had wanted all along, to see what people were really like.

Well, what did they know now? On the one hand, they had Alice. Alice was completely exposed. No wonder they didn't love Alice.

But on the other hand, they had Tilly. And there was no need to change Tilly. They loved Tilly.

THE FAITHFUL COMPANION AT FORTY.

This One Is Also for Queequeg, for Kato, for Spock, for Tinker Bell, and for Chewbacca.

His first reaction is that I just can't deal with the larger theoretical issues. He's got this new insight he wants to call the Displacement Theory and I can't grasp it. Your basic, quiet, practical minority sidekick. The limited edition. Kato. Spock. Me. But this is not true.

I still remember the two general theories we were taught on the reservation which purported to explain the movement of history. The first we named the Great Man Theory. Its thesis was that the critical decisions in human development were made by individuals, special people gifted in personality and circ.u.mstance. The second we named the Wave Theory. It argued that only the ma.s.ses could effectively determine the course of history. Those very visible individuals who appeared as leaders of the great movements were, in fact, only those who happened to articulate the direction which had already been chosen. They were as much the victims of the process as any other single individual. Flotsam. Running Dog and I used to be able to debate this issue for hours.

It is true that this particular question has ceased to interest me much. But a correlative question has come to interest me more. I spent most of my fortieth birthday sitting by myself, listening to Pachelbel's Canon, over and over, and I'm asking myself: Are some people special? Are some people more special than others? Have I spent my whole life backing the wrong horse?

I mean, it was my birthday and not one d.a.m.n person called.

Finally, about four o'clock in the afternoon, I gave up and I called him. "Eh, Poncho," I say. "What's happening?"

"Eh, Cisco," he answers. "Happy birthday."

"Thanks," I tell him. I can't decide whether I am more p.i.s.sed to know he remembered but didn't call than I was when I thought he forgot.

"The big four-o," he says. "Wait a second, buddy. Let me go turn the music down." He's got the William Tell Overture blasting on the stereo. He's always got the William Tell Overture blasting on the stereo. I'm not saying the man has a problem, but the last time we were in Safeway together he claimed to see a woman being kidnapped by a silver baron over in frozen foods. He pulled the flip top off a Tab and lobbed the can into the ice cream. "Cover me," he shouts, and runs an end pattern with the cart through the soups. I had to tell everyone he was having a Vietnam flashback.

And the mask. There are times and seasons when a mask is useful; I'm the first to admit that. It's Thanksgiving, say, and you're an Indian so it's never been one of your favorite holidays, and you've got no family because you spent your youth playing the supporting role to some macho creep who couldn't commit, so here you are, standing in line to see Rocky IV, and someone you know walks by. I mean, I've been there. But for every day, for your ordinary life, a mask is only going to make you more obvious. There's an element of exhibitionism in it. A large element. If you ask me.

So now he's back on the phone. He sighs. "G.o.d," he says. "I miss those thrilling days of yesteryear."

See? We haven't talked twenty seconds and already the subject is his problems. His ennui. His angst. "I'm having an affair," I tell him. Two years ago I wouldn't have said it. Two years ago he'd just completed his est training and he would have told me to take responsibility for it. Now he's into biofeedback and astrology. Now we're not responsible for anything.

"Yeah?" he says. He thinks for a minute. "You're not married," he points out.

I can't see that this is relevant. "She is," I tell him.

"Yeah?" he says again, only this "yeah" has a nasty quality to it; this "yeah" tells me someone is hoping for sensationalistic details. This is not the "yeah" of a concerned friend. Still, I can't help playing to it. For years I've been holding this man's horse while he leaps onto its back from the roof. For years I've been providing cover from behind a rock while he breaks for the back door. I'm forty now. It's time to get something back from him. So I hint at the use of controlled substances. We're talking peyote and cocaine. I mention p.o.r.nography. Illegally imported. From Denmark. Of course, it's not really my affair. Can you picture me? My affair is quiet and ardent. I borrowed this affair from another friend. It shows you the lengths I have to go to before anyone will listen to me.

I may finally have gone too far. He's really at a loss now. "Women," he says finally. "You can't live with them and you can't live without them." Which is a joke, coming from him. He had that single-man-raising-his-orphaned-nephew-all-alone schtick working so smoothly the women were pa.s.sing each other on the way in and out the door. Or maybe it was the mask and the leather. What do women want? Who has a clue?

"Is that it?" I ask him. "The sum total of your advice? She won't leave her husband. Man, my heart is broken."

"Oh," he says. There's a long pause. "Don't let it show," he suggests. Then he sighs. Again. "I miss that old white horse," he tells me. And you know what I do? I hang up on him. And you know what he doesn't do? He doesn't call me back.

It really hurts me.

So his second reaction, now that I don't want to listen to him explaining his new theories to me, is to say that I seem to be sulking about something, he can't imagine what. And this is harder to deny.

The day after my birthday I went for a drive in my car, a little white Saab with personalized license plates, KEMO, they say. Maybe the phone is ringing, maybe it's not. I feel better when I don't know. So, he misses his horse. Hey, I've never been the same since that little pinto of mine joined the Big Roundup, but I try not to burden my friends with this. I try not to burden my friends with anything. I just nurse them back to health when the Cavendish gang leaves them for dead. I just come in the middle of the night with the medicine man when little Britt has a fever and it's not responding to Tylenol. I just organize the surprise party when a friend turns forty.

You want to bet even Attila the Hun had a party on his fortieth? You want to bet he was one hard man to surprise? And who blew up the balloons and had everyone hiding under the rugs and in with the goats? This name is lost forever.

I drove out into the country, where every cactus holds its memory for me, where every outcropping of rock once hid an outlaw. Ten years ago the terrain was still so rough I would have had to take the International Scout. Now it's a paved highway straight to the hanging tree. I pulled over to the shoulder of the road, turned off the motor, and just sat there. I was remembering the time Ms. Peggy Cooper stumbled into the Wilc.o.x bank robbery looking for her little girl who'd gone with friends to the swimming hole and hadn't bothered to tell her mama. We were on our way to see Colonel Davis at Fort Comanche about some cattle rustling. We hadn't heard about the bank robbery. Which is why we were taken completely by surprise.

My pony and I were eating the masked man's dust, as usual, when something hit me from behind. Arnold Wilc.o.x, a heavy-set man who sported a five o'clock shadow by eight in the morning, jumped me from the big rock overlooking the b.u.t.terfield trail, and I went down like a sack of potatoes. I heard horses converging on us from the left and the right and that hypertrophic white stallion of his took off like a big bird. I laid one on Arnold's stubbly jaw, but he cold-c.o.c.ked me with the b.u.t.t of his pistol and I couldn't tell you what happened next.

I don't come to until it's after dark and I'm trussed up like a turkey. Ms. Cooper is next to me, and her hands are tied behind her back with a red bandanna and there's a rope around her feet. She looks disheveled but pretty; her eyes are wide and I can tell she's not too pleased to be lying here next to an Indian. Her dress is b.u.t.toned up to the chin so I'm thinking, At least, thank G.o.d, they've respected her. It's cold, even as close together as we are. The Wilc.o.xes are all huddled around the fire, counting money, and the smoke is a straight white line in the sky you could see for miles. So this is more good news, and I'm thinking the Wilc.o.xes were always a bunch of dumb-a.s.s honkies when it came to your basic woodlore. I'm wondering how they got it together to pull off a bank job, when I hear a horse's hooves and my question is answered. Pierre Cardeaux, Canadian French, hops off the horse's back and goes straight to the fire and stamps it out.

"Imbeciles!" he tells them, only he's got this heavy accent so it comes out "Eembeeceels."

Which insults the Wilc.o.xes a little. "Hold on there, hombre," Andrew Wilc.o.x says. "Jes' because we followed your plan into the bank and your trail for the getaway doesn't make you the boss here." Pierre pays him about as much notice as you do an ant your horse is about to step on. He comes over to us and puts his hand under Ms. Cooper's chin, sort of thoughtfully. She spits at him and he laughs.

"s.p.u.n.k," he says. "I like that." I mean, I suppose that's what he says, because that's what they always say, but the truth is, with his accent, I don't understand a word.

Andrew Wilc.o.x isn't finished yet. He's got this big chicken leg he's eating and it's dribbling onto his chin, so he wipes his arm over his face. Which just spreads the grease around more, really, and anyway, he's got this hunk of chicken stuck between his front teeth, so Pierre can hardly keep a straight face when he talks to him. "I understand why we're keeping the woman," Andrew says. "Cause she has-uses. But the Injun there. He's just going to be baggage. I want to waste him."

"Mon ami," says Pierre. "Even pour vous, thees stupiditee lives me spitchless." He's kissing his fingers to ill.u.s.trate the point as if he were really French and not just Canadian French and has probably never drunk really good wine in his life. I'm lying in the dust, and whatever they've bound my wrists with is cutting off the circulation so my hands feel like someone is jabbing them with porcupine needles. Even now, I can remember smelling the smoke which wasn't there anymore and the Wilc.o.xes who were and the lavender eau de toilette that Ms. Cooper used. And horses and dust and sweat. These were the glory days, but whose glory? you may well ask, and even if I answered, what difference would it make?

Ms. Cooper gets a good whiff of Andrew Wilc.o.x, and it makes her cough.

"He's right, little brother," says Russell Wilc.o.x, the runt of the litter at three-hundred-odd pounds and a little quicker on the uptake than the rest of the family. "You ever heared tell of a man who rides a white horse, wears a black mask, and shoots a very pricey kind of bullet? This here Injun is his compadre."

"Oui, oui, oui, oui," says Pierre agreeably. The little piggie. He indicates me and raises his eyebrows one at a time. "Avec le sauvage we can, how you say? Meck a deal."