The Gorgon Field by Kate Wilhelm Page B

getting low, casting long shadows now.
    “If people can manipulate that kind of power, why don’t they?” he demanded.
    She shrugged. “New priests drive out the old priests. New religions replace the old. The conquerors write the books and decide what’s true, what’s myth. Temples are turned into marketplaces. Roads are built. Admission is charged to holy places and the gum wrappers appear, the graffiti… . But the stories persist in spite of it all. They persist.”
    She looked at him when she heard the sound of ice hitting a glass. His face was stony, unknowable.
    “When we lose another animal species,” she said, almost desperate for his understanding now, “no one knows exactly what we’ve lost forever. When a forest disappears, no one knows what marvels we might have found in it. Plants that become extinct are gone forever. What drugs? What medicines? What new ways of looking at the universe? We can’t really know what we’ve lost. And this valley’s like that. Maybe we can’t know what it means today, or even next year, but it exists as a possibility for us to know someday, as long as it remains and is not desecrated.”
    He picked up the two glasses and joined her at the window, where he put the glasses on a table and took her into his arms. He held her very close and hard for a minute or two and then kissed her. “Let’s have our drink,” he said afterward. “And then it’ll be about time to mosey on downstairs.” And he tried to ignore the ice that was deep within him, radiating a chill throughout his body.
    Manuel drove them without a word. He was subdued and nervous. Ahead of the Jeep was a Land Rover moving cautiously, avoiding the ruts in the tracks, easing into and out of the holes. Deborah and her father were in it. Also ahead of them was Tony on a horse, in no hurry, either. He had a scabbard with the rifle jutting out.
    Manuel stopped near the stream where he had parked before, but Deborah drove her father closer to the formations and parked within fifty feet of them. Manuel got a folding chair from the car and set it up; he placed a large Indian blanket on the back of the chair and then looked at Deborah with a beseeching expression. She shook her head. Silently, he went back to the Jeep, turned it, and drove toward the house. Tony was tying his horse to a hitching post near the mound of the graves.
    Don Carlos walked slowly over the rocky ground; there was a line of sweat on his upper lip when he reached the chair and sat down. No one offered to help him, but they all watched until he was settled. Probably, Charlie thought, they knew better than to try to help. If he wanted help, he would ask for it politely, matter-of-factly, and unless he did, they waited. A worthy adversary, he thought again. He had no doubt that Don Carlos had killed, maybe more than once, and that he would not hesitate to kill again if he had to. Don Carlos knew, as Charlie did, that the world was not always a nice place.
    Tony drew nearer. He and Charlie eyed each other like two alley cats confined in a too-small space, Constance thought, watching everyone, everything closely.
    She heard a faint singing and glanced about to see if the others were listening too, to see if Ramón had approached from behind the gorgons. Charlie’s expression of lazy intention did not change; no one moved. They didn’t hear it, she realized. The singing was more like chanting, and louder. The earth rolled away from the sun and caught the light in the stream at the far end of the valley: a dagger of golden light slicing through the cliffs, pointing the way.
    It was time. She touched Charlie’s arm. When he looked at her, she said softly, “Don’t let them follow me. Please wait I’ll be back.”
    The ice flowed through him, tingled his fingers and toes, froze his heart. He nodded silently. Their gaze held for another moment, then she turned and walked toward the entrance of the gorgons. He had known this was her part, just as