Iglesia ……………………………………… Episode 46

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As the words “All right, Slim” left her mouth, a hot dog and a cream soda appeared in her hands and she managed not to drop either of them. “I could get used to this!” she mumbled through a mouth full of frankfurter. They walked along the top of the cloud until long after she had finished and the detritus of her lunch had disappeared from her hands just as she was wondering what to do with it. And then they walked some more.

Finally Rogers opened a hatch and they stepped off the cloud. Iglesia was about to ask him how he knew where they were, but then thought better of it. It had been a nice hike and she didn’t want to ruin it by having him take 500 words to say, no, I won’t tell you.

This time the hatch did not open to the service corridor! Instead it opened directly into a deep, shadowed canyon with a rocky bottom and a tiny trickle of stream meandering slowly through it. The walls were high and and studded with the chalky white stones that were also scattered about the floor of the ravine in various sizes. They walked downhill skirting the stream through unfamiliar plants and a the canyon gradually widened some small fir and cypress trees. Tiny tributaries added to the stream as they went until it was a pleasant burbling thing, with occasional miniature cataracts. They walked through growing twilight at the end, and finally Rogers cut to his right and up out of the canyon on a game trail. When they emerged, they were on a vast, gently sloping plain of yellow green grass, extending below the foothills that had contained their canyon. Copses of green cedar dotted the plain, along with dramatic outcroppings of the same white rock that had been in the canyon. Tiny purple flowers peaked out from around the rocks and the occasional deep blue iris bloomed at random across the plain.

The sun had set yet its light was lingering, hanging in the still air. The first stars were coming out high in the dome of the sky and it was getting harder to see her footing in the gathering dark, but it was now apparent that they were heading for one of the copses, a large one, that was directly below and nestled against the largest outcropping of white rocks on the plain, which Iglesia thought looked like a tumbled down ruins of a castle.

The long hike and the beauty of first the walk on the cloud and then the plain at twilight had sent Iglesia deep inside herself. She was startled when she  heard voices coming from the trees as she and Rogers approached. Especially since one of the distant voices was clearly Rogers’.