the right. Four deer stood grazing in the valley, regarding the cars curiously but not fearfully.
He had the windows down and his arm resting across the door and his mind was on Claire, disconnected from his surroundings,
until he saw the leaves.
They were down on the right, in a short field that ran between the railroad tracks and a creek. A cluster of dead leaves soaked
by winter snows and spring rains and then baked to parchment under this unseasonable sun. He looked away from the road asthe Blazer in front of him crackled and roared and pulled away, put his foot on the brake and turned the wheel, and brought
the Acura to a stop on the side of the road, watching.
The leaves were spinning in a circle, rising several feet off the ground but remaining tightly packed, swirling in a perfect
vortex. It was the sort of thing you’d see during the fall in Chicago, where the winds eddied between buildings, trapped by
tons of concrete and steel and forced into unusual patterns. But out here, in an open field, when the wind seemed to blow
only out of the west and had nothing to redirect it, that circle was unusual. Even the wind itself seemed tremulous, lending
an uneasy quality to the way those leaves danced and spun. Yes, that was the word.
Uneasy
.
He put the car in park and opened his door and stepped out into the wind, felt it wrap his shirt around his body and lift
warm road dust to his nostrils, a smell that reminded him of summer labor during college, when he’d hauled wheelbarrows around
construction sites for a Missouri masonry company. He left the road with the car running and the door only half closed, an
electronic chime pinging after him, and walked down the short hill and into the tall grass on the other side. Up the little
ridge and onto the tracks, and then he stopped, looking down at those leaves.
The vortex had thickened now, attracting more leaves. It was at least eight feet tall and maybe four feet in diameter at the
top and one foot at the bottom. Swirling clockwise, a little rise and fall in the motion, but generally a perfect circle.
For a moment he was completely captivated, holding his breath and staring, but then his mind kicked into gear and he thought,
Get the camera, dumbass.
He hurried back to the Acura and dug the camera and tripod out, sure that when he turned his back, the leaves would havesettled, this rapturous moment gone. They were still turning, though, and he walked up to the gravel ridge where the train
tracks ran and got the camera set up and turned on.
For this he wanted the zoom reduced as much as possible, a wide-angle shot that captured the bizarre look. The light was poor,
the gray gloom of twilight, but it was enough to work with. Behind the swirling leaves the deer stood at the edge of the tree
line and stared at him. He’d been standing with his eye to the viewfinder for a few seconds before their ears rose and, one
after another in a silent sequence, they took quick leaps into the trees and vanished. It wasn’t until the last one disappeared
that he became aware of a sound, faint at first but building rapidly. Wind was part of the sound—more wind in his ears than
there was in the air, heavy and roaring. There was something else over the top of it, though, light and lilting. A violin.
Now a third sound joined in, lower than both the violin and the wind, and at first he thought it was the steady plucking of
a cello or bass. Then it grew louder and he realized it wasn’t an instrument at all, but an engine, the sound of heavy gears
straining, pounding along in constant rhythm. The violin rose to a frantic shrieking and then vanished abruptly, and the wind
died down and the leaves fell out of the vortex and scattered over the ground, one blowing across the grass and trapping itself
against Eric’s leg.
The engine sound was louder than ever, approaching fast, and Eric turned from the camera and looked up the railroad tracks
He had the windows down and his arm resting across the door and his mind was on Claire, disconnected from his surroundings,
until he saw the leaves.
They were down on the right, in a short field that ran between the railroad tracks and a creek. A cluster of dead leaves soaked
by winter snows and spring rains and then baked to parchment under this unseasonable sun. He looked away from the road asthe Blazer in front of him crackled and roared and pulled away, put his foot on the brake and turned the wheel, and brought
the Acura to a stop on the side of the road, watching.
The leaves were spinning in a circle, rising several feet off the ground but remaining tightly packed, swirling in a perfect
vortex. It was the sort of thing you’d see during the fall in Chicago, where the winds eddied between buildings, trapped by
tons of concrete and steel and forced into unusual patterns. But out here, in an open field, when the wind seemed to blow
only out of the west and had nothing to redirect it, that circle was unusual. Even the wind itself seemed tremulous, lending
an uneasy quality to the way those leaves danced and spun. Yes, that was the word.
Uneasy
.
He put the car in park and opened his door and stepped out into the wind, felt it wrap his shirt around his body and lift
warm road dust to his nostrils, a smell that reminded him of summer labor during college, when he’d hauled wheelbarrows around
construction sites for a Missouri masonry company. He left the road with the car running and the door only half closed, an
electronic chime pinging after him, and walked down the short hill and into the tall grass on the other side. Up the little
ridge and onto the tracks, and then he stopped, looking down at those leaves.
The vortex had thickened now, attracting more leaves. It was at least eight feet tall and maybe four feet in diameter at the
top and one foot at the bottom. Swirling clockwise, a little rise and fall in the motion, but generally a perfect circle.
For a moment he was completely captivated, holding his breath and staring, but then his mind kicked into gear and he thought,
Get the camera, dumbass.
He hurried back to the Acura and dug the camera and tripod out, sure that when he turned his back, the leaves would havesettled, this rapturous moment gone. They were still turning, though, and he walked up to the gravel ridge where the train
tracks ran and got the camera set up and turned on.
For this he wanted the zoom reduced as much as possible, a wide-angle shot that captured the bizarre look. The light was poor,
the gray gloom of twilight, but it was enough to work with. Behind the swirling leaves the deer stood at the edge of the tree
line and stared at him. He’d been standing with his eye to the viewfinder for a few seconds before their ears rose and, one
after another in a silent sequence, they took quick leaps into the trees and vanished. It wasn’t until the last one disappeared
that he became aware of a sound, faint at first but building rapidly. Wind was part of the sound—more wind in his ears than
there was in the air, heavy and roaring. There was something else over the top of it, though, light and lilting. A violin.
Now a third sound joined in, lower than both the violin and the wind, and at first he thought it was the steady plucking of
a cello or bass. Then it grew louder and he realized it wasn’t an instrument at all, but an engine, the sound of heavy gears
straining, pounding along in constant rhythm. The violin rose to a frantic shrieking and then vanished abruptly, and the wind
died down and the leaves fell out of the vortex and scattered over the ground, one blowing across the grass and trapping itself
against Eric’s leg.
The engine sound was louder than ever, approaching fast, and Eric turned from the camera and looked up the railroad tracks
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