Lou exited the Nichols' Bed & Breakfast refreshed from her afternoon nap and loaded with camera gear. As she loaded her rental for the evening's shooting, she noticed the chrome of a motorcycle's exhaust pipe beyond the driveway hedge.
"That you, Sailor?" she called toward the hedge.
A hulking mass of black leather rose up from hiding and smiled at her. "No, ma'am, it's me."
"Snake! How are you? Well, come here right now!" She threw her arms open, met him halfway, and the resultant crushing bear hug was mutual.
"You look good!" she said, leaning back from the hug.
"You're still beautiful," said Snake.
Lou gave a mock gasp. "Flirting? For shame. What would Elizabeth say if she could hear you?"
Snake turned away, suddenly saddened.
Lou saw her mistake right away, and her whole demeanor changed from teasing to sympathy. "Oh, Snake, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Was it an orthodontist?"
He shook his head. "It was an insurance salesman."
"Oh, dear!" Lou was genuinely horrified. "That's even worse!"
Snake removed his leather jacket to reveal his sleeveless tank top, and he turned to show Lou his extremely well developed bicep. "Yeah, that's worse, but that ain't the worst."
Lou inhaled in sincere woe as she gazed at the word "ELIZABETH" tattooed in large letters from his shoulder to his elbow.
"Snake, didn't we talk about this? You know what happened to my pop after my mother.... Who did it for you? Dragon Diane in Tampa?"
"Don't matter who done it. I knew you and Pop said don't never tattoo nobody's name, but I found somebody who would do it, and now I'm paying for it. I'm saving up for plastic surgery to take it off. Either that or a belt sander—if I catch a good sale at Home Depot."
Lou gave him a consoling look and another hug, then helped him shrug into his leather jacket. "Hold off a while on that sandpaper idea. We'll think of something. Now, let's go take some pictures."
She slapped him on the back, they boarded their respective vehicles and drove away.
In the Ramada Inn parking lot a police car was parked near Randall's van. Two police officers were hauling the semi-conscious, battered Randall from his vehicle into theirs.
Across the street, Mule unwrapped a stick of sugarless gum and watched calmly, leaning on his parked motorcycle.
Lou's car passed, followed by Snake on his motorcycle. Lou noticed nothing. Mule saluted Snake, who pulled over to the curb.
"What's going on?" Snake asked, jerking a thumb toward the police car.
Mule smiled. No teeth actually showed, but the sides of the beard elevated half a centimeter. "Our little Buddy just got arrested for vagrancy. Guess somebody saw him sleeping in that old van and called the poe-leece."
Snake smiled, saluted Mule, and left to catch up with Lou's car.
Not long afterward, Randall, at the police station, made his One Phone Call. When the party answered, he said, "Fritz, it's me— ... Ah, fine, fine, thank you, and you? ... Good. Look, I'm sorry for disturbing you, but it seems I've been arrested— ... If you could just listen for now, thank you. Would you please call the magazine's law firm: Jerkhauer, Jensen, Jeaves, and Jackwater, and have them get me a local attorney. ... Yes, this evening, Fritz. And Fritz: I don't have to tell you who not to call, do I? ... I'm sorry, whom not to call. ... Right. Thank you.
Randall hung up the phone, and an officer escorted him to his cell.
On the other side of the country, snuggling into her bed with a stack of Saturday morning papers to finally peruse at the end of a long day, the dreaded Meriweather anticipated reading happy tales of the charm and grace displayed by her employer upon receiving his great honors at Friday night's Los Angeles gala.
All day she had reveled in her success: he had not escaped this time. She had triumphed over the classic Randall Reluctance for Recognition. Because of her perspicacity and perseverance, Galen Randall had at long last ended his life as a recluse and rejoined the public world. And, it wouldn't hurt the magazine's bottom line for its owner and star photographer to be 1995's International Society of Nature Photographers' Man of the Year. Of course, the Society had originally planned to make Randall the 1994 honoree, but he was so elusive and evasive, it had taken Meriweather this entire year to out-maneuver the louse and force him to attend the award ceremony.
The unconquerable Meriweather had succeeded where all lesser beings would have failed. She inhaled a breath of victorious air and exhaled a gust of honest pride. She really deserved a raise after an accomplishment of this caliber. On Monday, she would give herself one, she vowed.
And so, with the pillows perfectly plumped, the lamplight exactly bright enough, the steaming teacup within easy reach on the bedside table, and the stereo quietly droning appropriately triumphant orchestral music, Meriweather opened the New York Times.
A few moments later, Meriweather opened the Washington Post.
Shortly after that, Meriweather opened the USA Today.
There was no mistake. All three papers carried the same wire service article with the same grainy black-and-white photograph. A photograph of Fritz, the chauffeur.
She shrieked. She pounded the pile of newspapers with her fists. She threw the whole mass of newsprint onto the floor. She bent down and retrieved one of the articles and hoisted it back onto the bed. She read the article again, the same way one looks again at a horrible train wreck despite wishing to deny its existence.
The caption under the picture said, "Reclusive publisher/photographer Galen Randall feted by ISNP."
Meriweather read part of the article aloud, spitting the words like an angry cat. " 'He used to be called the new Howard Hughes, but no more. World-renowned photographer and magazine mogul, Galen Randall, had avoided public appearances and publication of his own image for so long that he was sometimes rumored to be dead.'"
She slapped Fritz's photo as if slapping Randall's face. "It won't be a rumor when I get my hands on the two of you!"
In the region of the Canyonlands known as The Needles, Lou photographed the moon rising, deep purple streaked with silver, between the jagged teeth of rock skyscrapers. Her friend, Snake, lounged on a small boulder nearby, and gazed dreamy-eyed over the scene.
In his incongruous, gravel-rough voice, Snake crooned, "Just makes ya feel all warm and dreamy, don't it? I feel like sayin' a poem. If I knew any clean ones."
Lou had screwed her camera onto its tripod, and she focused her lens and locked the shutter. Stepping gingerly away from the camera and tripod, she said, "There. We'll just keep real still and leave that shutter open for a couple of hours to record the trails of the stars."
"'The trails of the stars.' That's so romantic," said her gravel-voiced friend.
"Snake, take off your jacket."
"Oh, no, Lou! I didn't mean nothin' like that! I was just talkin' in general!"
She laughed, pulled a felt-tip pen from her gear bag, and settled herself on the rock beside him. "I know what you meant, Snake. I just want to get another look at Elizabeth's name. I been thinking there's something we can do about that. And we do have a couple hours to kill."
She flicked on a tiny flashlight from her camera bag, held it between her teeth, and carefully pointed the light away from the camera. She held her pen at the ready. When Snake didn't move, she raised her eyebrows.
Snake nodded and removed his jacket. He edged close enough for Lou to reach his tattooed arm, and she began sketching around Elizabeth's name with her felt-tip pen.
At the Moab police station, Randall was leaving the building in the company of a local attorney who had been roused by a call from Jerkhauer, Jensen, Jeaves and Jackwater in Miami. For a young lawyer starting his small practice in the desert town of Moab, this was tantamount to receiving a call from The Lord of Heaven. So, he had been happy to grab his vinyl briefcase and rush to post bail for Galen Randall.
The two men stopped at the bottom of the front steps, and Randall shook the lawyer's hand, apologizing yet again for getting the fellow out of bed on a Saturday night. The young lawyer, who was being paid more for the past hour's work than he had earned in the previous six months, told Randall, sincerely, that he was thrilled to be of help. No trouble at all. Call any time. He even pretended Randall didn't smell (or look) that bad.
Randall and the lawyer went their separate ways.
From across the street, Mule followed Randall.
Under the stars, out in The Needles, Lou finished her design and put down her felt-tip pen on the boulder where she sat. She took her flashlight from her teeth and gave it to Snake, then she left the boulder and went to close the shutter on the tripod-mounted camera.
Snake had been musing upon the celestial universe while Lou worked on his arm. Now he used the flashlight to study carefully the elaborate rattlesnake artistically curving up his bicep through leafy branches. Nowhere was the fickle Elizabeth's name visible through the foliage.
"It's a miracle," he breathed.
"Well, just don't wash it off until you can get over to Tahoe Tess. Once she's seen it, she can ink it for ya."
Snake got up to return the flashlight and help Lou pack her gear. "I ... Lou, I just don't know what to say."
"Say you won't buy a belt sander and you won't get any more names tattooed. And then say goodnight. Tomorrow's another day."
They finished gathering Lou's equipment, then they hiked over a quarter-mile of slickrock to get to their vehicles.
~o~~o~~o~
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
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