James R. Terry's Cameras

They were all there, in the "furnace of the world," as the papers had started calling it, and they were getting annoyed with James R. Terry's cameras. First, this was supposed to be a scientific trip, not a photo shoot. Everywhere you turned, there was Terry with his cameras, and his direction. "Can you just walk up that ridge again?" and "Can I get you to sort of crouch right there, with the smoke coming up behind you?"

It was easy to be annoyed with him. Him and his thin mustache. No one had caught him at it, but he had to spend some time every couple days in front of a mirror with tweezers, or whatever. He was underfoot. And he wouldn't carry any supplies. Any trip supplies. He always his hands full with camera stuff in bags.

But the thing that got to everyone, even if they weren't totally aware of it, was what the cameras implied: someone would be seeing these pictures. Sometime. Later. When they wouldn't be able to explain for themselves what they had seen. He was writing their epitaph, one click and flash at a time. That was unsettling.

All around them, volcanoes stirred. The air was filled with plumes. They had meters to tell them when the concentration of poison in the air was too much. In other words, they were all walking through poison every day. The question was, Is there too much poison today? This was the kind of thing that each man needed his mind on. It was unpleasant, but distraction could kill faster than sulfur in the air. And James Terry's cameras were a distraction, a reminder that someone might need to tell their story for them, that they would unable to. And he wouldn't let anyone forget that.

Underground

He couldn't lay any lower. He couldn't go any deeper underground without being dead and buried. He didn't even remember everything he had done. Telling lies was so natural now he didn't even know he was doing it. He didn't talk to people very much anymore, but when he did he was always Cal, never Peter. The first month he'd felt self-conscious every time he introduced himself. He thought he was giving himself away with a look or a twitch. But no one thought twice. Not too many people moved from Chicago (where he said he was from) to Deer Tree, Idaho, but this Cal was a nice enough sort, they thought.

The Sixties had pushed him here, and he tunneled all the way from the University of Texas. It started out exciting. Pickets and protests and occupations. They all had bandanas over their faces and he thought he was a hero. He ate brown rice for dinner.

He had a college student's mental flexibility, so when Janice (was that even her name?) had suggested that they free the animals in the bio building, he thought that was a fine idea. It didn't hurt Janice's case that she wore tight sweaters, and had fine, long legs. Peter was in. And the next night, four of them went to Borden Hall, smashed their way in, and Peter put a bullet through a security guard's forehead.

He left that night, for Oklahoma first. Buddy from high school went there. And then it was one friend-of-a-friend's floor after another until the wind blew him to Deer Tree. At first he thought they'd be after him. He'd read the papers. Nothing in the Upper County Reader, so he'd drive into Coeur d'Alene to read the New York Times. He didn't exist. No one was looking for him. His face had been covered the whole time, and no one knew his name. Then paranoia settled over his mind like insecticide.