The Fancy Dancer

feelings and events of the summer poured over my memory like the airstream outside. God would punish me. This little plane would crash in the mountains somewhere, and I would die a lingering horrible death and go to hell. Or Vidal would be killed on the highway to Denver, and I would suffer the guilt of his death for the rest of my life.
    Murchison was an affable guy. Sensing my nervousness, he thought it was from flying, and tried to put me at ease.
    “Ever flown in a small plane, Father?” he asked.
    “No,” I said.
    We were already at fifteen thousand feet. The Rockies rolled out under us in every direction. Their tumbled peaks made a complete circle around our horizon. Since it was now August, they had shed the last of their snow. This vision of divine creation didn’t make me feel inspired. Instead, it crushed me like a worm.
    “You can see a long way from up here,” said Murchison, trying to show me the sights. “See that farthest range way to the north there? That’s the China Wall, up near Glacier Park. And you see those white peaks to the south there? Those are the Tetons, down in Wyoming.”
    I felt ill, and took one of my Dramamines. All I could think of was Missy Oldenberg’s funeral, and the bouquet wilting on the mound of chalky dirt in the hot sun.
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    In thirty-five minutes, we were touching down on the bigger runway at Missoula airport.
    I had to wait two hours there for Flavey the businessman. So I passed the time in one of the small flying-service hangars, hanging out with the pilots, drinking coffee out of the vending machine and watching Murchison get started with the 170’s inspection. I listened to the pilots telling tall tales and brooded about my fate. I could close my eyes and feel myself sitting behind Vidal on the bike, his strong back against my chest, his hair whipping my face.
    Bill Flavey showed up right on schedule. He was a big stout florid man in a big hat. He looked like a Texas oil man, but the pilots had told me he owned several pulp mills.
    Flavey and I climbed into his fancy little red and white two-seater Cessna and took off. Flavey didn’t talk to me much, and didn’t even seem to know I was a priest. I was glad to be anonymous. Yet a new kind of aloneness closed around me. I was like a voyager through space, lost beyond time. Cottonwood had burned out behind me, like an old star, and Denver didn’t exist yet.
    Two hours later, after a very bumpy flight and another Dramamine, we were circling in to Stapleton International Airport on the north side of Denver. The city spread across its flats under us, shrouded in smog—you could scarcely see the mountains that ringed it.
    “Okay, see ya in a few days,” said Flavey. “Here’s my number in case anything comes up.”
    He handed me his card and strode off, swinging his cowhide briefcase.
    As I walked into the main terminal building, I still felt a little shaky from the flight.
    The bustle of the airport was dizzying, and made me feel the larger bustle of this great Western metropolis. Jumbo jets whined down onto the crisscrossing runways, or took off with an earthshaking rumble, trailing black exhaust. People ran this way and that, hugged, kissed, and looked for lost luggage, argued about expensive flight insurance, sipped coffee, bought trashy souvenirs and paperbacks in the shops. For years I hadn’t been anywhere outside of western Montana, and I felt confused.
    I found a shiny new public telephone with clear plastic fittings that was almost a work of art. Putting a dime into it with shaking fingers, I got ready to dial the fatal number. Then I put the phone back on the hook without dialing, and waited for the dime to come tinkling back.
    Chicken, I told myself. Some martyr you would have made.
    I was starved, so I sat at one of the lunch counters, and had a cheeseburger and two cups of strong black coffee. People whizzed around me, talking about their relatives and their jobs and their operations. No one knew that the blond young man with the black turtleneck sweater and black jacket, carrying a small suitcase, was a guilt-ridden priest who was about to flout 3,000 years of Western religious discipline by dialing a phone number. Flight departures and arrivals were announced as if I didn’t exist The security people searched baggage, and found pairs of scissors and ounces of marijuana instead of guns.
    When I’d eaten, I felt better. I paid and went back to the beautiful telephone.
    This time, when