The Paradox StoneBy Ken RandChapter OneSitting in the eagle's nest atop the tree people called the Old Man, Thomas watched a little boy running toward him through the sage and rabbit brush up the mountain meadow. A flock of redwing blackbirds fluttered by, chattering. A small herd of mule deer wagged their Mickey Mouse ears and sprang for the woods to the east, startled by the running figure far to the south. Otherwise, the meadow was empty in the morning quiet. "Oh, gosh," Thomas said. For a moment, the sight of the small person, alone, running, still far away, frightened him. He frowned, not sure 'frightened' was the right way to feel at the moment. He lay back in the bowl of the nest, legs folded awkwardly in the cramped space, gazing up at the pale, cloudless Wyoming sky. He discovered one of his bootlaces had come undone and he bent forward to retie it, brow furrowed in concentration on the new problem. He remembered the first time he'd tied his own shoes, how proud Pete had been. He smiled at the memory. Now, Thomas recalled the time he'd discovered that there were other words to describe being scared. He'd been walking with Pete, checking fence, and a jackrabbit had bolted through the high grass a few yards in front of them. "Guess we scared him," Thomas had said. "Not scared," Pete said. "Startled." Thomas became fascinated over the difference between the words and discovered yet another word; 'frightened,' which he liked more than 'scared.' He pestered Pete about the words. "But what's the difference--" "I can't explain it, dammit," Pete finally said, shaking his head, sighing. He tried to be patient. Pete always tried to be patient when he explained things to Thomas, but he didn't always succeed. "Startled," Thomas said, "not frightened. Yeah." He smiled, pleased that he'd figured it out without Pete's help. He couldn't wait to tell Pete that he'd figured it out all by himself. For a moment that made him happy. Then he remembered where he sat and that he'd borrowed Pete's new binoculars without asking for permission first, like he ought, and if he told Pete that he'd figured out the difference between 'frightened' and 'startled,' he might have to tell him he was in the meadow when he figured it out, which might lead to having to tell about the binoculars and Pete might get mad. Thomas didn't like it when Pete got mad at him. It always made Thomas sad. No, better to try to remember the original plan--return the binoculars before Pete got back from town, wait for a better time to find out the difference between 'frightened' and 'startled.' And a little boy was running toward him in the meadow. "Oh, gosh," Thomas said. But instead of thinking about the little boy, he remembered the binoculars and thought about them. He sat up and looked over the rim of the nest, squinting. The sun had just cleared the Winds to the southeast, the jagged peaks snowless in the late August heat. The Wind River Mountains had seen little rain since early May. Not much snow had fallen last winter, even at higher elevations, though it had been bitter cold. And the winter before that had been just as dry. The boy, approaching up the narrow meadow from the south, cast a long bobbing shadow across the dusty sage. He was still quite far away, more than a half mile, but even without the binoculars, Thomas could see the boy's short legs pumping up and down in rapid, erratic rhythm, his little arms flailing wide to balance his ragged stride between and among the clumps of stiff gray-green sage and rabbit brush that dappled the meadow floor. Forest bordered the meadow on its east and west flanks, mostly fir with patches of aspen. Few trees grew in the meadow itself. Dust hung in the air behind the boy, marking his trail. "Gonna be a hot one," Thomas said, frowning. He continued to try to not think of the little boy, but his heart pounded loudly in his chest. The bushes came up to the boy's stomach. Thomas knew the same bushes came up to his thighs. The boy must be new to the area, Thomas decided, otherwise he'd use the trail, making better time. The narrow hiking trail that snaked up the meadow floor hugging the eastern edge of the meadow used to run along a creek bed, gone dry four years ago. And the boy wasn't a squatter, or he wouldn't be in the meadow at all, and he wouldn't be running; he'd be sneaking through the trees, on the lookout for Forest Service patrols or militia. He wasn't a poacher; no gun. The boy wasn't hiding in the woods and he wasn't using the trail. Instead, he struggled through the brush in the meadow's center. Thomas shook his head and gave up; it was impossible to not think about the little boy. The boy appeared to be trying to put as much distance between himself and the McDonnell ranch as he could, as fast as his legs could carry him. "Worried," Thomas said. Another big word, but a pretty good word to describe how he felt. A magpie called as it rose from a chokecherry thicket to the west. Thomas brought the binoculars out of his backpack with grave reverence; they would help him see his beloved mountain meadow as he'd never seen it before from his airy perch, and he could taste his eagerness, a thirst in the back of his throat, an eagerness that prompted him to violate one of Pete's cardinal rules. "Don't take things without asking," Pete had said time and again, meaning not only other peoples' things, but Pete's. But Thomas couldn't always remember all the rules. There were so many. Thomas had looked through binoculars once before and the images had thrilled him into a fit of sudden and uncontrolled laughter. He'd gotten so excited that he'd wet his pants, making somebody laugh and embarrassing Pete. So when Pete drove to town in the electric before sunup, Thomas forgot the rule, or convinced himself that he wouldn't remember the borrowing later anyway. He'd put the binoculars in his backpack and walked--ran--right after chores to his sanctuary high above the ranch, to the abandoned eagle's nest he'd taken over as his own ten years ago. Again, Thomas allowed his mind to drift away from the quickly approaching boy in the meadow. When he'd first seen the meadow, it had been on a horseback trip--his first time on a horse--with Pete, Uncle Ted, and Aunt Nida. That was during a vacation a few years before Ted and Nida died and willed the ranch to Pete, back when he and Pete still lived in L.A. They'd climbed the winding trail up the west face of the ridge, through the thick canopy of firs in the morning quiet. As they mounted higher and higher up the steep ridge, Thomas drank in the spice of the forest in every breath. He gazed gap-jawed at the narrow shafts of sunlight that penetrated the thick forest, at every shuddering branch, scuttling squirrel or jay, at every crack in the granite boulders through which the trail wound upward. The muffled thump of the horses' hooves on the well-worn trail echoed in the cathedral-like stillness, and the party whispered when they spoke at all. Thomas had said nothing, rapt. Then they'd rounded a small hillock, the trail flattened out, they passed a screen of aspen and underbrush, and suddenly they entered the meadow. "Eight Mile Meadow, they call it," Uncle Ted had said. "Used to be greener. Made by a glacier couple thousand years ago. Going to pot now. Turning to desert. Gets worse every year." It spread before them, a swatch of grass and sage cut neatly between two walls of trees, running north to south, narrow and straight, no more than a few hundred yards wide. The distant valley floor could be seen to the south. To the north, the meadow petered out in hilly country amidst a clutter of granite shards, boulders, and the fringe of deeper forest. Farther to the east, the Wind River Mountains jabbed the sky in rocky, snowy splendor. It hadn't been hazy back then, Thomas remembered. In the center of the meadow, like a wooden sword stuck in the ground, the Old Man stood alone. They set up camp in the meadow, in the shade of the Old Man, a popular stop at the time. Back then tourism was still common, the grass stayed green longer, and there was more of it, and the nearby creek ran full. Uncle Ted told stories about the meadow and the old cottonwood and Thomas listened in awe. "The Old Man's probably the oldest tree in the Winds," he'd said. "Maybe the biggest too. Ten feet across the base, looks like. Got hit by lightning in '47, otherwise he'd be a lot taller. Used to be an eagle nest up there a few years back. Big bald eagle. Huge one. Gone now." Thomas begged for a return trip, but Uncle Ted had been busy at the ranch and it didn't happen. The memory of the outing stayed with Thomas on the trip back to L.A. when their vacation ended, haunting him. Then Uncle Ted and Aunt Nida got killed in the car accident and Thomas discovered that they'd willed the place to Pete and that Pete planned to move there to live. Thomas found it hard to feel sad about the deaths of his only other living relatives beside Pete. Every now and then, he'd persuade Pete to take him to the meadow. But it didn't happen often enough for Thomas. And he never went alone. He buffed the new binoculars on his sleeve. The binoculars' oily tang and the musk of its leather case overrode the familiar perfume of tree sap and decayed vegetation. It arrested Thomas's attention for a moment and he inhaled deeply. "Smells good," he decided. The metal smelled agreeable, but in particular, he liked the scent of leather. He hung the strap around his neck, made sure the binoculars didn't bump against the branches and twigs interlaced along the inner surface of the nest. He removed the lens caps, placing them in the bottom of the case which he snapped shut and returned to his backpack. He brought the binoculars to his eyes, adjusted the focus and scanned the brush for the boy. The crystal sharp images in the lens produced a gasp of surprise and Thomas cried out in joy, then placed his hand over his mouth to stifle the sound, but he kept the binoculars pressed to his eyes. "Oh, gosh," he said. His eyes were tearing, but he didn't want to take the binoculars away to wipe them. He giggled in excitement, then worried about peeing his pants. But he'd remembered what happened last time so he'd peed before climbing the tree. Steadying his shaking hands on the rim of the nest, Thomas found the boy in the lens and, bringing his ragged breath under control, settled down to watch. And to think. The boy was closer now, maybe a quarter of a mile away. Thomas looked for the details he hoped would tell him what he was supposed to feel, think and do. His heart slammed against his chest and he felt a vague sense of unnamed dread, the presence of a dark closet in his mind into which he didn't want to look. The boy wore no jacket. He bobbed up and down and side to side, running hunched over, watching where he was going. He carried something clutched in one arm that looked like a pouch or purse, with a strap over one shoulder. The boy fell among the sage, kicking up powdery dust, startling a rabbit out of hiding, and disappeared for an instant from Thomas's view. He stood back up and continued in a staggered run, his pace unabated, clutching the pouch to his chest. Now and then, he looked behind him. For pursuers, Thomas decided. Thomas scanned the southern horizon, behind the boy, toward the McDonnell place in the valley at the foot of the meadow. The complex sat about four miles away. Through the binoculars he could see smoke rising above the cluster of buildings, hazy and indistinct in the distance. He saw the glint of sunlight off something metal or glass, and thought he saw movement. A thin, coppery haze hung over the complex, a miniature version of the smog Thomas remembered seeing when Pete had taken him to Salt Lake City a few years ago to see the circus. "It's our last chance to see a circus," Pete had said. "Why?" "No more circuses. There's a bunch of new laws. And it cost too much." "Oh." The haze looked thicker than it did a few days before, Thomas thought, remembering the Indians and the upcoming rally. Pete had told him that Indians from several Western tribes had been gathering for days on the McDonnell ranch for a rain dance set for the next day. They'd come by the thousands, by public transport, private vehicle, by horseback, and by horse drawn wagon. "I saw one bunch," Pete had said, "a family, about a dozen from babies on up, it looked like, a couple days ago down south of McDonnell's place. They said they'd crossed west over the Winds from the Reservation on foot. Imagine walking that far. Whole damned family." Thomas recalled hearing Pete complain about what was going on at McDonnell's place. Maybe the few fuelers contributed to the stain in the air above the complex. That and the dust raised by the hundreds of tee-pees, campers, and temporary shelters on the grounds. And a few illegal wood fires. But the sky in all directions appeared hazy. Several fires still tore at the flanks of the Winds. Most were far to the north. Miraculously, the meadow and the surrounding area continued unscarred. No one else was in or near the meadow, Thomas observed. No one followed the boy. Yet. The meadow was on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, federal government land. The Forest shared a long southern border with the McDonnell place, at the foot of the meadow, the borderline within a few dozen feet of the complex perimeter fence. The Forest shared a shorter southwestern border with Pete's and Thomas's smaller ranch on the western side of the steep, rocky ridge that marked the meadow's extreme western border. No vehicles were allowed in the meadow--no roads. That meant that whenever the boy was discovered missing, his pursuers would come on foot or horseback up the meadow, if they figured out which way he'd gone. "Yeah, they'll figure it out," Thomas said. The boy was kicking up enough dust that anybody looking north up the meadow through binoculars from the McDonnell place would see the trail in the dust lingering in the morning air, warming as the sun climbed. Anticipating the coming heat of the day, Thomas took off his down-filled parka, folded it, and set it beside him. He frowned. He decided that Forest Service agents wouldn't be out looking for the boy soon. They were all busy up north, at Union Pass Road, fighting a fire. Another big one. Others were watching access roads on the other side of the mountains, from what he'd heard Pete say. They watched for poachers, intercepting and turning away the increasingly frequent squatter families. "They're understaffed and spread too thin," Pete had said. "That's why they count on folks like us, folks who have land that borders the Forest proper, like us and McDonnell and half a dozen others, to patrol our own areas and watch out for ourselves. Keep the refugees out." "And the militia?" Thomas had said. "They help too, patrolling back roads. Don't they?" Pete had snorted. "Yeah. Big help." If the boy came from the McDonnell place, his people would be out after him soon. McDonnell wouldn't use his helicopter to search, of course. Or would he? He'd gotten in trouble before with the government for flying his helicopter over the Forest, but his lawyers had always gotten him off. This runaway boy couldn't be important enough to require using the helicopter. Could he? Thomas lowered the binoculars, wiped his teary eyes and squinted at the broad southern horizon for the blip of the helicopter. He didn't see it. Looking through the binoculars again, zeroing in on the ranch, he saw what looked like a helicopter partially hidden behind a building. And he didn't hear a helicopter breaking the morning peace. A crow cawed somewhere. Otherwise, the meadow was silent. Thomas let the binoculars dangle against his chest and sighed. "Okay, a boy is running away from home," Thomas said. This he understood. He'd done it himself, once, after he and Pete had moved to Wyoming from L.A. He'd run away on his 30th birthday, ten years ago. He'd made Pete mad about something--he couldn't remember what--and Pete had yelled at him, swearing out loud, called him names. That made Thomas sad, and he had run away, over the ridge into the meadow. But he'd gotten scared when it started to get dark and he began to miss his younger brother. Wandering around, he found himself near the Old Man. On impulse, he decided to climb it, hoping that if he got up high, he could see the ranch, spot the trail leading to it, and get home before dinner. He climbed the pale, barkless cottonwood without thought, without hesitation. He climbed quickly and easily and found the nest at the top. Thomas was awed. In the nest, he'd entered another world, a tiny womblike room open to the sky. All his own. The nest was just big enough for him to turn around in. It felt soft and warm. Tufts of grasses in the bowl of the nest cushioned his weary feet as he took off his boots, and clumps of black feathers with white tips were everywhere, handfuls jammed into every crack. The thick odor of leafy decay reminded him of deep-shaded forest floor, but this was exposed to the sun. He found it soothing as he looked out over the waist-high rim of the nest, which couldn't be seen from below. He could see lights at the McDonnell ranch to the south, but not his own beyond the western ridge. Still, he'd oriented himself and knew how to get home. And suddenly his anxiety about getting home vanished. Suddenly he didn't feel lonely or scared anymore. Thomas's fear evaporated as he looked around him. The view of the meadow below and around him as the sun set over the western ridge pulled his breath from his lungs in tiny gasps. He wept in loud gulping sobs, wiping tears from his eyes furiously so he wouldn't miss a single second of the spectacular view. "So pretty," he whispered over and over, turning in slow circles, drinking it all in. "So pretty." The boy was about two hundred yards away now and Thomas could hear his labored breathing already in the still air. He seemed oddly dirty-faced and Thomas raised the binoculars to look closer. But the bobbing image eluded him and he couldn't bring the boy into clear focus. Concerned the boy had come close enough to see him if he bothered to look up, Thomas crouched down in the nest. He let his mind wander--safer than thinking about the little boy--and recalled again that first night in the Old Man. Long after dark, he'd drifted off to a peaceful sleep, unafraid, in the arms of the ancient tree, a canopy of stars for a blanket. The Old Man swayed and creaked in a gentle breeze, lulling him. Crickets sang. A coyote helloed. When he returned to the ranch the next morning, Pete cried out, hugged him, yelled at him, then apologized for yelling and promised to never yell again, if Thomas would promise never to run away again. Which Thomas promised, if Pete would promise to let him camp out now and then in the meadow beyond the ridge. By himself. Thomas had never been allowed to go out by himself before. Pete appeared so happy to see Thomas return safe that he agreed quickly. Squatters and poachers hadn't become a problem yet. The militias were years away. Still, he almost went back on his word the next afternoon when Thomas stuffed his backpack with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, some boiled eggs, Ding Dongs, a couple of apples, his Garfield thermos filled with grape Kool-Aid and a dozen or so Spider-Man comic books. "But you said," Thomas reminded Pete of his promise, pouting. "You said. I heard you. Remember?" Caught by his hasty promise, Pete gave in, but not until he'd gotten more pledges from Thomas; that he be careful, that he stick to the trail, that he come back at dawn. There were other promises, but Thomas forgot most of them. He agreed to everything because he knew if he did Pete would have no choice but to let him go, as Pete had agreed to do earlier, but didn't want to do now. Pete had tried to secretly follow Thomas up the ridge and through the forest to the meadow a half mile away. Thomas couldn't remember if letting Pete follow him had been part of the deal, so he decided to make a game of it and ditch Pete. Pete didn't track as good as he thought he did, Thomas concluded, smothering a grin. Thomas knew Pete followed, but Pete didn't know that Thomas knew. "This is fun," Thomas said, as he scampered up the branchless tree, quick and agile as a chipmunk despite his size. Pete, still out of sight beyond a small rise a hundred yards away in the trees and thick undergrowth to the west, hadn't seen Thomas climb the cottonwood. Thomas didn't dare poke his head above the rim of the nest to watch Pete, sure that Pete would see him. But he listened, stifling his snickers as Pete ran through the clearing dominated by the lone tree, past Thomas's secret hideout. Pete ran to the dense expanse of fir to the east, the eastern border of the meadow, a mirror image of the forest on the meadow's western border. In a few minutes, during which Thomas giggled to himself, Pete returned, passing within a few yards of the tree, just a hundred feet below Thomas, swearing. Soon, Thomas heard Pete head back west over the ridge, toward home. The next day, Thomas came home just after dawn, as promised. He said nothing about playing hide and seek the day before. Pete said nothing about it either, and he never followed Thomas into the meadow again. The boy fell again, cursing, bringing Thomas out of his reverie. The boy had come closer, about fifty yards away now. He would pass right under the tree. As Thomas listened to the boy panting, cursing, the door to the dark closet in his mind burst suddenly open and he recalled the rule he hadn't had to remember in a long time. "Just stay the hell away from little kids," Pete had warned. "Why?" "Even when you're with me, but especially if you're ever alone, okay?" "Yeah, I guess. But why?" "Cause you're too goddam big, that's why. You scare hell out of kids--and adults too, so don't do it, okay?" Thomas agreed, impressed with Pete's insistence and a bit mystified. He knew there was another reason he was supposed to stay away from little kids, a scarier reason, one from back when they lived in the city, but he couldn't remember it. And, somehow he knew he didn't want to remember. He sighed, oddly relieved that he remembered that he was supposed to avoid kids, even if he didn't recall exactly why, and decided he would just watch the kid go by, not disturb him. Maybe he'd follow him into the woods at the north end of the meadow where the meadow petered out, just to make sure he was all right. But if he did that, he'd do it secretly, so the boy wouldn't see him following and become frightened. "Frightened," he said, "not startled." He figured watching over the boy in secret might be something Pete would do, and something Pete would be proud of Thomas for doing, or at least thinking of. And the fact that the boy seemed to be running away from the McDonnell place was something Thomas felt sure Pete would also approve of. Pete didn't like McDonnell, Thomas knew, without knowing why, and the McDonnell people always made Thomas feel uneasy, even when he was with Pete. But Thomas didn't get into town often, and when he did, he seldom strayed far away from Pete. Thomas didn't mind. Thomas pulled the backpack to him, took out the lens caps and placed them over the binocular lenses. He took the binoculars from around his neck and put them into the case. He snapped the case shut and hung it on a small twig knob protruding from the inner lip of the nest, noticing how the camouflage color of the binoculars blended with the nest color. Thomas could hear without looking over the nest rim that the boy was a few feet away now, and would pass by in a few seconds. The boy had stumbled onto the trail and would move quicker now as he ran northward deeper into the forest. He waited until the boy got past him, huffing and puffing, before he peeked over the rim to watch the boy head north. Just then, when Thomas peeked over the edge to look down at the boy's back as the boy retreated north, the boy turned suddenly and looked up at Thomas. Thomas and the boy cried out at the same time--startled, not frightened--and both fell away. Thomas fell back into the nest, the boy toppled over the gnarled branches of a sage bush. Thomas quickly regained the rim and looked back down at the boy lying on the ground, grimacing in pain, gripping his pouch in one hand and his twisted ankle in the other. "Oh, my gosh," Thomas said. The boy, he saw, had a beard.
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