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Birthday for sister!
Happy slightly belated birthday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stellar_dust!
Thinking about that number is making *me* feel old, so I can only imagine how you feel. :D
Have some several-years-late birthday fic:
Title: Coyote's Track and Serpent's Tooth
Notes: X-Files; William, futurefic, gen, no adult content.
Part 1/2 (I *swear* Part 2 will be up by this time tomorrow.)
Possibly in need of fact-betaing. Go to. Author notes will be at end.
Summary: The year Billy is 12, the Van de Kamp family's summer vacation takes an unexpected turn.
Across the parking lot and inside the gift shop attached to the park's visitors center, Mrs. Van de Kamp, a shining light of the aforementioned church, was looking a "genuinely hand-made by Native craftsmen!" pot. It was large and wide-mouthed and painted with a black-and-white design of stylized mountains and grazing buffalo. Mrs. Van de Kamp had not been terribly excited by the idea of a bus tour through the Four Corners states, but she and her family had gone on every one of the church's annual two-week group vacations for the past ten years. And anyway, her husband and son were both very interested at the idea of a tour of Native American sites. Mrs. Van de Kamp still wasn't terribly excited by the heat or the endless piles of useless, crumbling rock, but over the past few days she had become rather reconciled to the shopping.
She turned the pot up to see if there was any kind of artist's mark on the base, then tilted it toward her husband. "What do you think?" she asked. "Would it do for a Christmas present for the Johanssens?"
Mr. Van de Kamp raised his eyebrows. "What I think is there's no way that's going to fit in your luggage," he said. "And I wouldn't trust it to the mail."
"It might work as a new trash can for my room," a third voice chimed in. They both jumped and looked up to see that 12-year-old Billy had joined them. "Come on, Mom," he added. "That's total tourist trash. They don't even have bison in New Mexico, so why would they paint them on a pot?"
"Billy! Stop doing that!" said his mother. "You nearly startled me out of my wits!"
He grinned and shrugged a shoulder loosely. He'd recently started growing into himself and was nearly as tall as his mother already, with floppy dark hair that was always ending up in his face. "Pastor Kristen offered to take a bunch of us down the Red Yucca trail to see the big ruins at the bottom. Can I go?"
His parents glanced at each other. "Please?" he added sincerely.
"All right, I don't see why not," said Mr. Van de Kamp. The teen and pre-teen set had been going off on their own a lot this trip, but Kristen, the youth pastor, was a capable and responsible young woman well able to keep them in hand. "But be careful. And listen to the older people."
"And stay out of the sun!" his mother called after him. "And away from snakes and strange bugs!" He waved back, grinning, as he nimbly darted between the display cases and out of the shop, to rejoin his friends.
Mr. and Mrs. Van de Kamp exchanged a glance and a smile. Twelve-year-old boys: what could you do?
"How about these sandstone carvings?" Mrs. Van de Kamp asked, pointing across the aisle.
"Hmm. I like the one with the buffalo," he replied.
The tour members drifted slowly from the gift shop through the museum. With most of the younger people burning off their extra energy on the two-mile canyon hike, it was a pleasantly calm afternoon. The Wyoming people gathered together for the hourly showing of the interpretive video ("Mysteries of the Ancient Ones") and then wandered in small clumps along the shorter overlook trails and the ancient pit houses along the rim. Anasazi Canyon was the second and longest stop on the tour today, but by 3:00 most of the members had drifted back onto the bus in preparation for the scheduled 3:15 departure.
Mrs. Van de Kamp dashed into her seat at 3:18 with a last-minute purchase, just as the bus driver was checking his watch for the third time. "The kids still aren't back from the hike," her husband informed her, looking up from the history book he'd bought in the shop. "Probably took longer to get back than they expected."
"It always does," she replied, settling her packages around the seat.
By 3:45 Pastor Riley was just about to set off down the trail after them, but at the last minute Kristen came herding the young people through the trail head and across the parking lot. "Sorry, sorry," she said breathlessly as the kids charged past her to their well-defended territory at the very back of the bus, sweaty and noisy with the energy of exhaustion. "We completely lost track of time. I'm very sorry. Go ahead, go, we're late enough as it is," and the driver took his foot off the clutch and headed for a late dinner and the night's lodgings, halfway across Arizona.
They'd been traveling since a 7:00 check-out in Utah that morning; the cool of the air conditioning, the serenity of the scenery, and the hypnotic rhythm of the road soon put much of the bus to sleep. There was silence except for a few murmured conversations, the occasional beep of a Gameboy or cell turning on, and a generally civilized poker game in the very back seat (being played for Sour Patch Kids instead of money.) Mrs. Van de Kamp drifted in and out of consciousness for a few hours, waking to see a saguaro roll past outside the window, or to watch her husband finish another chapter of his book. She didn't come fully out of her doze until they reached their destination, a rustic motel with attached restaurant in a tiny, quiet village with no downtown and a very laid-back population. It was after eight o'clock - they were still running half an hour late - and everybody was hungry and eager to get off the bus and find real bathrooms. The owner welcomed their bustle into the nearly empty dining room, and the group rapidly settled down for a meal. The young people, as usual, claimed a long table near the kitchens for their exclusive use, far enough away from where the adults were settling to protect them from the embarassment of acknowledging the existance of parents.
Mrs. Van de Kamp gladly took a table for two with her husband. She'd never regretted becoming a mother, but it was nice that Billy was getting old enough that there was time for just the two of them again, and she planned to take all possible advantage of it. The food was Southwestern, excellent, and plentiful, and after a heartfelt thanksgiving, her husband entertained her from his new book with stories about 19th century guerrilla warfare and Kit Carson's march through the sacred canyons.
So it wasn't until nearly ten o'clock, after the churros were eaten and the last cups of coffee were being finished, that she thought to look around for Billy so they could head up to bed. Then she looked again; she didn't see him anywhere at the kids' table. She didn't see him anywhere else in the dining room, either. She scanned again, quickly. He wasn't there.
She gently kicked her husband under the table to get his attention. "Honey, do you see Billy anywhere?"
Mr. Van de Kamp glanced around, then blinked. "He's probably just gone to the toilet again," he said. "It's been a long day."
Mrs. Van de Kamp frowned. It had been a long day, and she hadn't seen much of Billy during it. And there weren't any empty seats at that table. Suddenly starting to worry, she tried to remember the last time she'd actually seen him to notice him.
Not since noon at Anasazi Canyon?
"I still don't see him," she said, clamping down hard on the panic. "Stay here - I'm going to go talk to Pastor Kristen."
Kristen had assumed that he'd been with his friends, in whose company he'd spent most of the trip, but realized eventually that she hadn't seen much of him since the start of the hike down the canyon, either. She called over the friends, Alek and Madison.
"You mean he's not with you?" Alek asked Mrs. Van de Kamp, wide-eyed and innocent as usual.
"We thought he'd stayed with you two, honest," added Maddy. "He said he was going to go find Mr. Van de Kamp."
Pastor Kristen frowned. "Wait a minute - when exactly was this?"
Alek and Maddy glanced at each other. Alek frowned. Maddy pursed her lips, then said, "He wanted to take a closer look at some of those petroglyphs we passed on the way down - the ones with the spirals and the star marks?" she said. "Really early on, but all you guys were in a hurry, and he thought he saw another one on the other side of the creek bed. It was only about fifteen minutes after we started, so he said he'd just go right back when he was done and go find his dad."
"You mean he didn't ever find you guys?" Alek asked, looking between them and starting to sound worried.
No one could remember seeing Billy after that. Paster Riley was brought in, and soon the entire party had been canvassed, but there was no sign of Billy after he'd left his friends at that little clearing with the petroglyphs, halfway down Anasazi Canyon.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry," Kristen said, looking a few seconds away tears. "I should have made sure they were all there, but we were in such a hurry and then Aiden wandered off, and Mack insisted on climbing that tree even when everyone said she shouldn't, and I just didn't *think* - I can't believe I let this happen -"
Mrs. Van de Kamp couldn't beleive it either. Right at that moment, as it began to sink in that her son was missing, three hundred miles away, she wanted nothing so much as to lash out at the nearest likely person to blame, and screaming at Kristen, who really should have known better, was very tempting. But instead, she took a deep breath and sent up a quick prayer for compassion. She pulled the girl into a hug, and by the time their arms loosened, she felt calm enough to play an adult. "Don't blame yourself," she said firmly as she let the other go.
Kristen smiled weakly at her. "But it was my fault. He was my responsibility. I know you know it, too."
"It was everyone's fault," Mrs. Van de Kamp said. "It's tempting to find somebody to blame, but we all should have thought to count heads. And it's Billy's fault as much as anyone's. You know how often we've tried to drill into his head that it isn't safe to run off by himself all the time."
"I should know him well enough by now to expect that from him," Kristen murmured.
"I think we'll all be doing enough self-blame," she said. "I know I will. Let it go. Forgive yourself so God can forgive you."
"Okay," she said with a deep breath. "I'll do my best. What else can I do?"
"Pray for us," said Mrs. Van de Kamp ruefully. "And try to get as much sleep as you can."
Meanwhile, Billy's father and Pastor Riley had their cell phones out. A call to the ranger station got an after-hours recording, so after a quick consultation with the motel owner, they found the sherriff of the nearest town. "What can I do for you?" he asked, cheerfully enough considering that it was almost eleven PM. Once they'd got the message through he was all business. "First thing I'll do, I'll call Jimmy. Jimmy Nez, the park manager, that is, and I'll call the tribal council, and we'll get search parties out. Does your boy know how to handle himself in the outdoors?"
"Yes," said Mr. Van de Kamp, beginning to take heart. "Yes, he grew up on our ranch in Wyoming, he's always out exploring."
"Then I wouldn't be too worried yet, Mr. Van de Kamp. Those side canyons are easy to get lost in. Chances are he's curled up under a big juniper, waiting patiently for us to find him and thinking about nothing worse than his missed dinner. Tell you what, do you have a phone number you can give me?"
Mr. Van de Kamp gave him his cell number.
"I'll give Jimmy that number and he'll call you back as soon as there's any kind of news. You heading back up here, I imagine?"
"Yes, of course. Of course we are."
"I'll tell my wife to keep the kitchen light on for you."
Mr. Van de Kamp stared down at the phone for a second, then headed off in search of the bus driver, to find that his wife had already cornered him behind his coffee cup.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said, sounding like he really was. "But I can't just turn back like that - there's reservations, and timetables, and then there's fuel. I'd help if I could. But it is company policy; you all signed forms that said if you missed the bus you'd have to provide your own transportation. I can report it to the company when we get to the next stop, but that's all I can do."
"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "We'll - we'll take a taxi. Or rent a car. Did you get through to somebody?" she swung toward her husband.
"The sherriff's getting people together for a search party. He said he'd have somebody call back once there's any news. And that he's probably fine, just cold and hungry and lost."
"Cold and hungry and lost is *not* fine," she said, her eyes blazing. "Where do we call to get a taxi?"
"You don't," the driver said, shrugging. "There's not much going on around here. They don't even have enough trucks for the people who live here, probably. You'd have to call all the way to Flagstaff, or maybe Gallup, I'd bet."
"So what are we expected to do? Hitchhike?"
"If that's the only way, that's what we'll do," Mr. Van de Kamp said.
Pastor Riley, joining them, put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find a way. Or God will provide one. Have faith in that." He glanced over to the motel's owner, a few yards away at the counter, and stepped over for a muttered conversation.
The man looked back at them and pondered. "Your son's the one gone missing?" He nodded at Mr. Van de Kamp without waiting for an answer. "There's nothing round here to rent or borrow, but I tell you what, if you need to get north. My cousin Lenny's heading into Flagstaff early tomorrow to visit his son and his grandkids; I'll tell him to give you a ride that far. It won't be too far out of your way and you can hire anything you need at Flagstaff to get the rest of the way. What do you say?"
Mr. Van de Kamp looked at his wife doubtfully.
"It wouldn't do any good to head down there any earlier, anyhow," he added. "This late, everything will be closed, time you get there, and you'd end up waiting all night anyway."
"Well, I don't know," started Mrs. Van de Kamp.
"I'll just call Lenny then," the owner replied, as if she'd said yes enthusiastically. "Meanwhile, if you don't mind me saying so, you wouldn't do badly to take that good advice I heard you giving earlier, and try to get in some sleep and some prayer. I'd lay good bets that neither of those will be wasted, later."
Mrs. Van de Kamp did her best, but she didn't get much sleep that night, and she doubted that her husband had, either. Didn't get much praying done, either, to tell the truth, although she tried her best. She did memorize the pattern of the branches of the pine tree outside the motel window, though.
stellar_dust!Thinking about that number is making *me* feel old, so I can only imagine how you feel. :D
Have some several-years-late birthday fic:
Title: Coyote's Track and Serpent's Tooth
Notes: X-Files; William, futurefic, gen, no adult content.
Part 1/2 (I *swear* Part 2 will be up by this time tomorrow.)
Possibly in need of fact-betaing. Go to. Author notes will be at end.
Summary: The year Billy is 12, the Van de Kamp family's summer vacation takes an unexpected turn.
Anasazi Canyon National Monument. August, 2012.The noon sun beat down heavily on the pavement. By the far curb, the faded red tour bus chartered by the Disciples of Christ Bible Church of Wyoming idled loudly to itself, seeming to add several degrees to the baking heat.
Across the parking lot and inside the gift shop attached to the park's visitors center, Mrs. Van de Kamp, a shining light of the aforementioned church, was looking a "genuinely hand-made by Native craftsmen!" pot. It was large and wide-mouthed and painted with a black-and-white design of stylized mountains and grazing buffalo. Mrs. Van de Kamp had not been terribly excited by the idea of a bus tour through the Four Corners states, but she and her family had gone on every one of the church's annual two-week group vacations for the past ten years. And anyway, her husband and son were both very interested at the idea of a tour of Native American sites. Mrs. Van de Kamp still wasn't terribly excited by the heat or the endless piles of useless, crumbling rock, but over the past few days she had become rather reconciled to the shopping.
She turned the pot up to see if there was any kind of artist's mark on the base, then tilted it toward her husband. "What do you think?" she asked. "Would it do for a Christmas present for the Johanssens?"
Mr. Van de Kamp raised his eyebrows. "What I think is there's no way that's going to fit in your luggage," he said. "And I wouldn't trust it to the mail."
"It might work as a new trash can for my room," a third voice chimed in. They both jumped and looked up to see that 12-year-old Billy had joined them. "Come on, Mom," he added. "That's total tourist trash. They don't even have bison in New Mexico, so why would they paint them on a pot?"
"Billy! Stop doing that!" said his mother. "You nearly startled me out of my wits!"
He grinned and shrugged a shoulder loosely. He'd recently started growing into himself and was nearly as tall as his mother already, with floppy dark hair that was always ending up in his face. "Pastor Kristen offered to take a bunch of us down the Red Yucca trail to see the big ruins at the bottom. Can I go?"
His parents glanced at each other. "Please?" he added sincerely.
"All right, I don't see why not," said Mr. Van de Kamp. The teen and pre-teen set had been going off on their own a lot this trip, but Kristen, the youth pastor, was a capable and responsible young woman well able to keep them in hand. "But be careful. And listen to the older people."
"And stay out of the sun!" his mother called after him. "And away from snakes and strange bugs!" He waved back, grinning, as he nimbly darted between the display cases and out of the shop, to rejoin his friends.
Mr. and Mrs. Van de Kamp exchanged a glance and a smile. Twelve-year-old boys: what could you do?
"How about these sandstone carvings?" Mrs. Van de Kamp asked, pointing across the aisle.
"Hmm. I like the one with the buffalo," he replied.
The tour members drifted slowly from the gift shop through the museum. With most of the younger people burning off their extra energy on the two-mile canyon hike, it was a pleasantly calm afternoon. The Wyoming people gathered together for the hourly showing of the interpretive video ("Mysteries of the Ancient Ones") and then wandered in small clumps along the shorter overlook trails and the ancient pit houses along the rim. Anasazi Canyon was the second and longest stop on the tour today, but by 3:00 most of the members had drifted back onto the bus in preparation for the scheduled 3:15 departure.
Mrs. Van de Kamp dashed into her seat at 3:18 with a last-minute purchase, just as the bus driver was checking his watch for the third time. "The kids still aren't back from the hike," her husband informed her, looking up from the history book he'd bought in the shop. "Probably took longer to get back than they expected."
"It always does," she replied, settling her packages around the seat.
By 3:45 Pastor Riley was just about to set off down the trail after them, but at the last minute Kristen came herding the young people through the trail head and across the parking lot. "Sorry, sorry," she said breathlessly as the kids charged past her to their well-defended territory at the very back of the bus, sweaty and noisy with the energy of exhaustion. "We completely lost track of time. I'm very sorry. Go ahead, go, we're late enough as it is," and the driver took his foot off the clutch and headed for a late dinner and the night's lodgings, halfway across Arizona.
They'd been traveling since a 7:00 check-out in Utah that morning; the cool of the air conditioning, the serenity of the scenery, and the hypnotic rhythm of the road soon put much of the bus to sleep. There was silence except for a few murmured conversations, the occasional beep of a Gameboy or cell turning on, and a generally civilized poker game in the very back seat (being played for Sour Patch Kids instead of money.) Mrs. Van de Kamp drifted in and out of consciousness for a few hours, waking to see a saguaro roll past outside the window, or to watch her husband finish another chapter of his book. She didn't come fully out of her doze until they reached their destination, a rustic motel with attached restaurant in a tiny, quiet village with no downtown and a very laid-back population. It was after eight o'clock - they were still running half an hour late - and everybody was hungry and eager to get off the bus and find real bathrooms. The owner welcomed their bustle into the nearly empty dining room, and the group rapidly settled down for a meal. The young people, as usual, claimed a long table near the kitchens for their exclusive use, far enough away from where the adults were settling to protect them from the embarassment of acknowledging the existance of parents.
Mrs. Van de Kamp gladly took a table for two with her husband. She'd never regretted becoming a mother, but it was nice that Billy was getting old enough that there was time for just the two of them again, and she planned to take all possible advantage of it. The food was Southwestern, excellent, and plentiful, and after a heartfelt thanksgiving, her husband entertained her from his new book with stories about 19th century guerrilla warfare and Kit Carson's march through the sacred canyons.
So it wasn't until nearly ten o'clock, after the churros were eaten and the last cups of coffee were being finished, that she thought to look around for Billy so they could head up to bed. Then she looked again; she didn't see him anywhere at the kids' table. She didn't see him anywhere else in the dining room, either. She scanned again, quickly. He wasn't there.
She gently kicked her husband under the table to get his attention. "Honey, do you see Billy anywhere?"
Mr. Van de Kamp glanced around, then blinked. "He's probably just gone to the toilet again," he said. "It's been a long day."
Mrs. Van de Kamp frowned. It had been a long day, and she hadn't seen much of Billy during it. And there weren't any empty seats at that table. Suddenly starting to worry, she tried to remember the last time she'd actually seen him to notice him.
Not since noon at Anasazi Canyon?
"I still don't see him," she said, clamping down hard on the panic. "Stay here - I'm going to go talk to Pastor Kristen."
Kristen had assumed that he'd been with his friends, in whose company he'd spent most of the trip, but realized eventually that she hadn't seen much of him since the start of the hike down the canyon, either. She called over the friends, Alek and Madison.
"You mean he's not with you?" Alek asked Mrs. Van de Kamp, wide-eyed and innocent as usual.
"We thought he'd stayed with you two, honest," added Maddy. "He said he was going to go find Mr. Van de Kamp."
Pastor Kristen frowned. "Wait a minute - when exactly was this?"
Alek and Maddy glanced at each other. Alek frowned. Maddy pursed her lips, then said, "He wanted to take a closer look at some of those petroglyphs we passed on the way down - the ones with the spirals and the star marks?" she said. "Really early on, but all you guys were in a hurry, and he thought he saw another one on the other side of the creek bed. It was only about fifteen minutes after we started, so he said he'd just go right back when he was done and go find his dad."
"You mean he didn't ever find you guys?" Alek asked, looking between them and starting to sound worried.
No one could remember seeing Billy after that. Paster Riley was brought in, and soon the entire party had been canvassed, but there was no sign of Billy after he'd left his friends at that little clearing with the petroglyphs, halfway down Anasazi Canyon.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry," Kristen said, looking a few seconds away tears. "I should have made sure they were all there, but we were in such a hurry and then Aiden wandered off, and Mack insisted on climbing that tree even when everyone said she shouldn't, and I just didn't *think* - I can't believe I let this happen -"
Mrs. Van de Kamp couldn't beleive it either. Right at that moment, as it began to sink in that her son was missing, three hundred miles away, she wanted nothing so much as to lash out at the nearest likely person to blame, and screaming at Kristen, who really should have known better, was very tempting. But instead, she took a deep breath and sent up a quick prayer for compassion. She pulled the girl into a hug, and by the time their arms loosened, she felt calm enough to play an adult. "Don't blame yourself," she said firmly as she let the other go.
Kristen smiled weakly at her. "But it was my fault. He was my responsibility. I know you know it, too."
"It was everyone's fault," Mrs. Van de Kamp said. "It's tempting to find somebody to blame, but we all should have thought to count heads. And it's Billy's fault as much as anyone's. You know how often we've tried to drill into his head that it isn't safe to run off by himself all the time."
"I should know him well enough by now to expect that from him," Kristen murmured.
"I think we'll all be doing enough self-blame," she said. "I know I will. Let it go. Forgive yourself so God can forgive you."
"Okay," she said with a deep breath. "I'll do my best. What else can I do?"
"Pray for us," said Mrs. Van de Kamp ruefully. "And try to get as much sleep as you can."
Meanwhile, Billy's father and Pastor Riley had their cell phones out. A call to the ranger station got an after-hours recording, so after a quick consultation with the motel owner, they found the sherriff of the nearest town. "What can I do for you?" he asked, cheerfully enough considering that it was almost eleven PM. Once they'd got the message through he was all business. "First thing I'll do, I'll call Jimmy. Jimmy Nez, the park manager, that is, and I'll call the tribal council, and we'll get search parties out. Does your boy know how to handle himself in the outdoors?"
"Yes," said Mr. Van de Kamp, beginning to take heart. "Yes, he grew up on our ranch in Wyoming, he's always out exploring."
"Then I wouldn't be too worried yet, Mr. Van de Kamp. Those side canyons are easy to get lost in. Chances are he's curled up under a big juniper, waiting patiently for us to find him and thinking about nothing worse than his missed dinner. Tell you what, do you have a phone number you can give me?"
Mr. Van de Kamp gave him his cell number.
"I'll give Jimmy that number and he'll call you back as soon as there's any kind of news. You heading back up here, I imagine?"
"Yes, of course. Of course we are."
"I'll tell my wife to keep the kitchen light on for you."
Mr. Van de Kamp stared down at the phone for a second, then headed off in search of the bus driver, to find that his wife had already cornered him behind his coffee cup.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said, sounding like he really was. "But I can't just turn back like that - there's reservations, and timetables, and then there's fuel. I'd help if I could. But it is company policy; you all signed forms that said if you missed the bus you'd have to provide your own transportation. I can report it to the company when we get to the next stop, but that's all I can do."
"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "We'll - we'll take a taxi. Or rent a car. Did you get through to somebody?" she swung toward her husband.
"The sherriff's getting people together for a search party. He said he'd have somebody call back once there's any news. And that he's probably fine, just cold and hungry and lost."
"Cold and hungry and lost is *not* fine," she said, her eyes blazing. "Where do we call to get a taxi?"
"You don't," the driver said, shrugging. "There's not much going on around here. They don't even have enough trucks for the people who live here, probably. You'd have to call all the way to Flagstaff, or maybe Gallup, I'd bet."
"So what are we expected to do? Hitchhike?"
"If that's the only way, that's what we'll do," Mr. Van de Kamp said.
Pastor Riley, joining them, put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find a way. Or God will provide one. Have faith in that." He glanced over to the motel's owner, a few yards away at the counter, and stepped over for a muttered conversation.
The man looked back at them and pondered. "Your son's the one gone missing?" He nodded at Mr. Van de Kamp without waiting for an answer. "There's nothing round here to rent or borrow, but I tell you what, if you need to get north. My cousin Lenny's heading into Flagstaff early tomorrow to visit his son and his grandkids; I'll tell him to give you a ride that far. It won't be too far out of your way and you can hire anything you need at Flagstaff to get the rest of the way. What do you say?"
Mr. Van de Kamp looked at his wife doubtfully.
"It wouldn't do any good to head down there any earlier, anyhow," he added. "This late, everything will be closed, time you get there, and you'd end up waiting all night anyway."
"Well, I don't know," started Mrs. Van de Kamp.
"I'll just call Lenny then," the owner replied, as if she'd said yes enthusiastically. "Meanwhile, if you don't mind me saying so, you wouldn't do badly to take that good advice I heard you giving earlier, and try to get in some sleep and some prayer. I'd lay good bets that neither of those will be wasted, later."
Mrs. Van de Kamp did her best, but she didn't get much sleep that night, and she doubted that her husband had, either. Didn't get much praying done, either, to tell the truth, although she tried her best. She did memorize the pattern of the branches of the pine tree outside the motel window, though.
no subject
.. I'm not sure your geography is entirely correct, though. *ponder* Could a tour bus get from southern Utah to south of Flagstaff in 4 hours? And more importantly, would they want to do that without stopping at all the really cool stuff in between?
no subject
I was trying to be artistically vauge about locations, in hopes of keeping people from trying to spot geography errors! But I was putting them somewhere in the middle of New Mexico on the first stop, then about halfway between Gallup and Flagstaff on the second. .. to I hear you volunteering to beta?
no subject