LITMIR.BIZ

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asked, they would hold a cow or even a small herd at bay, confining them for hours while Roper went on to hunt for more cows. In a very real way, during roundup the dogs also provided the extra corral that he so desperately needed and had been denied.

      Within minutes, Moses had located the calf, pushing it out of the dense undergrowth where Roper could throw a rope on him. It snapped taut and Stepper back-stepped, dragging the bellowing calf to Ruby. She quickly branded, castrated and dehorned him, all in less than ten minutes.

      “Well, that about does it, thank God.” Ruby crossed herself in the traditional Catholic way, then slapped the dust from her Levis. “Let’s head up to the rim where we’ve got a view and some shade, then I guess I’ll have me some lunch.”

      “Fine by me,” Roper agreed. “I’m starved.”

      “Didn’t hear me invite you.” Ruby grinned.

      “I’ll tag along just in case you change your mind,” Roper chuckled.

      “Suit yourself,” Ruby smiled, dark eyes flashing, “but I don’t feed slackers.”

      “It’s almost four,” Roper said, consulting his watch. “Always thought lunches were supposed to be at noon. What kind of chicken outfit is this?”

      “Quit your whining,” Ruby said. “Lunch or dinner, what does it matter? From the amount of help you’ve been, you’ll be lucky to get any.”

      Mounting, they worked their way over to the rim of Fifty Mile Mountain. Pausing briefly at an overlook, they soaked in the view. Immediately beneath them was the sheer gray face of the Straight Cliffs. Further below, the desert valley spread out like flood waters, flowing to the north and south, though not so much toward the east. That direction was blocked by a maze of red domes and ribboned walls that constituted the lower Escalante canyons and were actually part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. To the far north was the town of Escalante and to the far south was the tumbled landscape of red Navajo sandstone that made up the basin of Lake Powell. Through this narrow arid valley snaked a serpentine gravel road, connecting Escalante with the Hole-in-the-Rock and subsequently to Lake Powell.

      Ruby pulled a small ground tarp from her saddlebags, spreading it over the thick layer of pinion and juniper needles. While she retrieved the steak sandwiches and cold drinks, Roper stretched his wiry frame out on the tarp, resting his back against a downed pinion log. He couldn’t imagine anything better, a picnic with Ruby Nez. Life was good.

      “You want a beer or Coke?” Ruby asked, holding up both.

      “Coke,” Roper said, taking the can and popping the tab. He took a long swallow, then settled back on the canvas. “Ah, that hits the spot.”

      “You don’t drink beer?”

      “Nah, it’s against the Word of Wisdom.”

      “And caffeine’s not?” Ruby asked, gesturing toward the Coke.

      “Well,” Roper stammered. “I guess it’s a matter of degree.”

      “So alcohol is a bigger sin than caffeine,” Ruby said, as she finished unpacking the lunch and arranging it on the tarp.

      “Something like that.”

      “Makes no sense to me,” Ruby said bluntly, offering Roper a roast beef sandwich. “But then again, your religion never has.”

      “And Catholicism does?”

      “Well, as least there’s a direct line to St. Peter,” Ruby replied.

      “Doesn’t matter that the line ran through miles of corruption, debauchery, plunder, murder and child molestation?”

      “And Mormonism doesn’t have any skeletons? Tell me about Mountain Meadows.”

      “That is a subject for a different time,” Roper said. “How do you suppose the pioneers ever got their wagons through Hole-in-the-Rock?” Roper asked, changing the subject and gazing south at the barely visible bulwark of Navajo sandstone where the early Mormon pioneers had literally carved a wagon trail through solid rock.

      “Hell, Doug, I don’t know, that’s why they call it Hole-in-the-Rock,” Ruby answered sharply as she opened a beer. “I suppose, they just took a concrete saw and ripped a hole in the canyon wall, then parted the Colorado like the prophet Moses and walked across.”

      “Your sarcasm is duly noted, “ Roper said, “but it still amazes me. They did all that back in eighteen seventy-nine.”

      “They wouldn’t have had to do it at all if they would have just followed Father Escalante’s route,” Ruby said, then she broke out into a grin, “I’m just giving you a bad time. It was an amazing feat.”

      “I guess it’s the history in me,” Roper said then fell silent, munching on the sandwich, “but that sort of thing has always fascinated me.”

      “Why’d you really come back, Doug?” Ruby asked after a moment of silence. “You know what they’re a sayin’, don’t you?”

      “Yes, I know,” Roper replied and took another bite. “I didn’t get caught cheating on my doctorate and I didn’t wash out. I got good grades and I was a fair teacher. Believe it or not, I just didn’t like it—not like I do this,” he said gesturing at the panorama before them.

      “They say you were almost done.”

      “Depends on what you mean by done. Finished my masters and was about halfway through my doctorate.” Roper stopped for a sip of Coke. “One hundred and ten hours a week between teaching and working on the thesis. Never seeing blue sky or breathing fresh air finally got to me. Then one day I had an epiphany.”

      “Like Joseph Smith?” Ruby said with a smile.

      “Will you let me finish?”

      She nodded.

      “I finally decided, this is not for me. I’m not going to prepare one more lecture for unappreciative students, or write another superfluous paragraph on the Battle of Culloden and the futile Jacobite Rebellion.”

      “Is that what your thesis was about?”

      “Yes. Of course, it’s all been written about many times before, that’s why I titled it, A New Perspective, on the Battle of Culloden, not that there was anything wrong with the old perspective. One day, I just realized that in the grand scheme of things, what I was doing didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Did the world really need a new perspective on something that had happened over two hundred and fifty years ago? So I finished the semester, put the thesis in cold storage and came home.”

      “Your dad hadn’t sold the ranch yet?”

      “By then, he’d had a couple of offers, none very good. He was trying to hang on till he could sell at a fair price. Didn’t want to just give it away.”

      “So’d you buy it from him?”

      “I tried to, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The compromise was I would take care of him and all his medical expenses,” Roper said. “Ironically, he died three months later—prostate cancer. Never did get his money’s worth for the place.”

      “I’m sorry, Doug,” Ruby said softly. “You two were close?”

      “He taught me everything—taught me to love all this,” Roper whispered, a catch in his voice. “I guess he’s the real reason I’m not a college professor.”

      “You may have been a good teacher,” Ruby said, “but I’m glad you came back.”

      They ate in silence for another moment then Roper continued, “you never told me that you used to date Angus Macdonald.”

      “You never asked,” Ruby replied. “Does it matter?”

      “No, not really. What happened?”

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