Chapter 3

Bev's comments about critters was really weighing on Ben's mind know. He wondered what he would do if faced with the prospect of coming face to face with such creatures. Besides the sleeping bag and pillows, he took two bedrolls that had a sort of foam cushion rolled up with the blanket. Nice and soft he imagined.

That comment about critters came back to him. That shovel and a camp knife went also. As he stood outside the pull-down stooping to enter, Bev was there, coming out. "Call of nature" as she handed him a roll of TP. "Ahh, good, you brought a shovel" as she took his critter defence away.

This was a side of Bev he had never seen. She seemed so at home out here. He could imagine her almost anywhere. As the night fell, he saw something else. What was just hot sand was now a glimmering oasis with sounds that seemed to come from all around. He could imagine her as his Cleopatra, he her mate travelling down the Nile into the deepest, darkest pit that was the wilds of Africa. Bev came back, handed him the shovel and took the other things inside the tent. That broke his revelry. Her comment to keep his boots high gave him pause and he went back to the Rover, roll of TP and shovel in hand, and got two of the folding stools and took them back to the tent. Bev's comment of, "Isn't this marvelous" gave him more pause. His true thought was that 'yes it is!'

He handed Bev the two folded chairs and went about his business, when he returned, the hug and kiss he gave Bev just seemed the right thing to do. He never felt this alive and right with the world since his divorce. He had another thought too as he looked back, up into the sky and felt that Heather was looking down at him and smiling.

He did place his boots and socks up high, on their sides even. Bev shook her head. She decided she would make an outdoorsman of him yet. She had been doing this with her parents most of her life. Like Ben, though this was her first trip out here and it was breathtaking to say the least. There was someone or something looking down on them from the heavens but it was not his daughter, but they indeed were smiling, almost a sort of glee.

That they had gone to place overlooking Chaco Canyon that was, they say, for thousands of years the place where once every 23 years the Ancients would come to once again make sacrifice and insure the cycle of prosperity and good fortune would continue. That this was one of those nights and that their being there was not by chance alone was lost on both of them. The song, dances and words being chanted in nearby villages was only a distant sound, overshadowed by the ever-increasing hum and rhythmic beating of drums. More sounds on the desert and echoes in the canyon they were not. The combination of sound, fresh air, and the euphoria of being in a new place would make sleep come easily to them both. That which was truly in their hearts would be tested for would not any gift to the gods need to be worthy.

Meanwhile, back in beautiful, downtown Burbank, Maxine entered the apartment. Phoebe and Jillian looked at her then asked, "Max, tell us that you didn't do anything yet, did you?"

"Ugff. I will not do anything sisters, but that Bastard that dropped me from the show will pay. I have seen to that," as she rolled up her sleeves on the sweatshirt she wore to show long deep scars on both her arms. "Sisters I have done everything they asked, everything I could but then to be cut wasn't enough for the Bastard, they told me my contract had been terminated and I was released. I wanted to die. I made certain that he would suffer everything I felt too, everything he tries to do now will be a test just like he made me go through."