Angels Fall

steady, and busy with their own lives. So they didn't take too much time out of his.
    She'd probably been all of that before she was hurt, he decided. She might be that way again, but never exactly the same way. He thought it would be interesting to watch her finish putting herself back together, and get a good look at the results.
    So he drove while she slept, across the yellow grasses and washed-out green of the ubiquitous sage. And he watched the Tetons spring up out of the plate of land. No gentle rise, no softening foothills to detract from that sudden and awesome power.
    Snow still swirled on the peaks, and the slashes of white against the blue, the gray, added another layer of might as they knocked against the sky.
    He could still remember his first sight of them, and how he, who'd never call himself a spiritual man. had been struck with their rough and terrible magic. The Rockies were grander, he supposed, and the mountains of the East more elegant. But these, the mountains that ringed what was, for now, his home, were primal.
    Maybe he had come here because he didn't have to jam his elbows into people everywhere he went to get a little space. But those mountains were a hell of a bonus feature.
    He drove fast along the empty road across the sage flats where a small herd of bison grazed. Lumbering along, he noted, coats shaggy, big heads lowered. A couple of calves, probably brand-new, stayed close to their mothers.
    Though he imagined Recce would enjoy seeing them, he let her sleep.
    He knew the flats would erupt into bloom under the summer sun, blaze with impossible color among the sage. And he imagined that with all those acres of open, a grave could go unnoticed by man or beast. If the man had the patience to dig, long and deep.
    He wound toward Angel's Fist, and the stands of cottonwood and pine that bordered it. Reece moaned quietly in sleep. When Brody glanced at her, he saw she'd begun to quiver.
    He stopped in the middle of the road, then turned to give her arm a quick shake. "Wake up."
    "No!" She came out of sleep like a runner off the starting block. When her fist shot out, he blocked it with the flat of his hand.
    "Hit me," he said mildly. "I'll hit back."
    "What? What?" She stared blearily at her fist cupped firmly in his hand. "I fell asleep. Did I fall asleep?"
    "It you didn't, you gave a good imitation of it for the past hour."
    "Did I hit you?"
    "You gave it a shot. Don't try it again."
    "Check." She willed her heartbeat to steady. "Can I have my hand back?"
    He opened his fingers so that she drew her fist back and let it fall into her lap. "You always wake up like you just heard the bell for Round Two?"
    "I don't know. It's been a long time—I can't remember how long— since I slept when anyone's been around. I guess I feel comfortable around you."
    "Comforting, comfortable." That eyebrow winged up. "You keep using words like that, I'm going to feel honor-bound to change your mind."
    She smiled a little. "Your kind doesn't hurt women."
    "Is that so?"
    "Physically, I mean. You've probably shattered your share of hearts, but you don't rough the owner up first. You'd just stab her ego to death with words, which is—now that I think about it—just as bad as a pop on the jaw. Anyway. I appreciate you letting me sleep. I must've… Oh! Oh, just look at them."
    She'd shifted away, and the view that filled the windshield blew everything else out of her mind. Struck, she unhooked her seat belt, pushed open her door. The wind streamed over her as she stepped out of the car.
    "It's all so raw , so stunning and scary. All this open, and there they are, the—I don't know—fortress of them taking over everything. It's like they just shoved their way up, straight out of the ground. I love the suddenness of them."
    She walked to the front of the car, to lean back against the hood. "I look at them every day, out my window, or when I'm walking to or from work. But it's not the same as being out here without buildings, without people."
    "I'm people."
    "You know what I mean. Out here, faced with them, you feel so utterly human."
    She looked over, pleased he'd come around to join her. "I thought I'd pass through, pick up a little work, move on. And every morning I look out my window at the lake, and I see them mirrored in it, and I can't think of any reason to leave."
    "Gotta land somewhere, eventually."
    "That wasn't the plan. Well, I didn't really have a plan, so to speak. But I thought I'd end up winding