Permanence

I asked him how things were going, and he replied that things were not good. He said that the mountains were not permanent at all. Every day he noticed the changes. I said that this was a surprise; what sort of changes did he notice? He looked at me intensely for a moment. I got the impression he was sizing me up, evaluating. I wondered what was going on in his head.

“The alluvial fans at the base of the range grow everyday. I can see it happening,” he said. “The mountains are breaking down before my eyes.”

I responded that he must have amazing vision to notice something like that; after all, the range was a good ten to fifteen miles from where we were standing. “Those fans can’t grow more than a few millimeters a year unless there’s been a slide.” I didn’t believe what he had said, but I didn’t let on. I was already wondering if we would have to get Greg some help.

“My perception has changed,” he said quietly, as if that was all the explanation anybody needed.

I thought it might be best to try to persuade him to give up this stupidity and come back to the station with me. I asked him what he planned to do now, having discovered the Panamints were not permanent. “Seems to me you don’t have much to look for now, if those mountains can’t fit the bill,” I said.

He seemed frustrated, disenchanted, angry in some veiled way. He mumbled, “I don’t know, I just don’t know.” He looked at the range for a few seconds. Shook his head once, gazed at the ground, looked back again at the range. I spent a few more minutes trying to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It was clear he was in for the long haul here.

When I finally gave up and left, I looked out over the flats one last time. Greg was looking at the Panamints again, and he stood there alone. I was struck by how frail his figure looked in that extremely harsh and unforgiving landscape.

We lost track of him for a few days. Ed went by Badwater the next day, but Greg was gone. We were in the dark for awhile, but we weren’t that concerned. Greg was a big boy: he could take care of himself – we hoped. We found him three days later on the dunes. Watching the dunes. Figure that one out – the mountains, sitting there for millions of years, aren’t permanent enough to suit him, so he goes and sits for a few days in the dune field, watching sand dunes that drift hundreds of feet in a decade. I think this is when I seriously began to wonder if the boy was still dealing with a full deck.

* * * * * * *

The wind is frequent here, and low-lying showers of sand grains trace the ridge-lines.

The dunes undulate in a slow-motion dance. The ridge-lines rise and fall, wave to and fro over the days.

Beetles scamper across exposed ground; a sidewinder weaves through.

Footprints cave in and are erased in minutes.

The pace is quicker here than on the mountains;

but a Space is opening. And I am aware of the change.

It is still in here.

* * * * * * *

Ed was the one who found him that day, and he talked to Greg for a while. Ed was deeply concerned; later, he said that Greg couldn’t speak coherently at times. He said Greg believed he was on the right track now . Ed pointed out the obvious – that sand dunes were not more permanent than mountains – and Greg merely looked at him intently. Ed left Greg to the dune field for the time being. The next day, when Ed and I went out together to try to bring him in, Greg was gone again. We saw or heard nothing of him for a month.

A tourist came in just the other day. She said she had been driving the unimproved road from Baker, and she had stopped with her husband to photograph the valley when they had noticed a man, hardly clothed at all, crouching before an ordinary Indian paintbrush a few dozen yards away. They had seen no transportation nearby, no campsite in the area. Naturally, they were initially concerned that he might be lost or injured, and they were going to lend a hand if possible. They approached him carefully and asked if he might need help.

He looked up at them, smiled, and said, “No, thanks. I’m fine now.” She said that he sounded almost exuberant, which she thought odd, considering the circumstances. She asked what he was doing, an innocent question. She told me she couldn’t remember exactly how he had replied – something about permanence.

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