Thunderbird (25 page)

Life is a game of chance.

—Voltaire, letter to M. Tronchin, 1755

O
N
S
ATURDAY
EVENINGS
, Kohana Brenner and Hank Stackhouse routinely stopped at Ramsey's Bar on the reservation for a couple of beers. Both were retired. Kohana had worked most of his life for a real-estate developer in Fort Totten. Hank had been a Customs officer at the Fort Moxie border station. In another era, both had played baseball for Spirit Lake High School.

Those had been good days. Life had gone a bit off the tracks since. Kohana had never married, and most of his family had left the Rez, so he was effectively alone now. Hank had lost his wife to cancer three years ago, and he was still trying to deal with it. He had two sons and a daughter. One of the sons and his daughter were in the Navy; the other son had married and now lived in Seattle. Consequently, they both looked forward to their evenings at Ramsey's, where they talked about politics and the Minnesota Twins and the craziness going on atop Johnson's Ridge and what they were currently watching on TV. Other old friends hung out
there, too. Hank usually had some news about one of the kids. Kohana was still actively chasing women around the reservation.

Normally, they spent most of the evening at the bar with a couple of the other guys. Kohana always enjoyed himself but usually couldn't have repeated much about the conversation. This particular evening, though, was an exception. They'd talked mostly about the space station and tried to figure out what was meant by a broken gravity field.

A framed picture of a Spirit Lake High School baseball team, the Indians, from forty years ago, hung on one wall. It wasn't the one he and Hank had played for. Theirs had been active a couple of years earlier. The guys in the picture had won a championship. Kohana had known a few of those kids, though. They'd just been starting during his senior year.

His team had never won a title, and in fact had barely finished over .500 during the two seasons he and Hank had been playing. Nevertheless, those had been gloriously good times. He hadn't realized it then, that it wasn't all about winning. It was about being there, being on the field with friends, with plenty of girls in the stands, living in a world full of enthusiasm.

Most of those people were gone now. Some had moved off the reservation. Others had died. Some had simply become strangers. And the reality was that he would have given almost anything to be able to go back and play one of those games again. Damned idiot, he thought, I never realized at the time what I had.

About midnight, they wrapped up the conversation, paid the tab, and headed for the door. He and Hank lived almost across the street from each other, not quite three blocks from Ramsey's. They collected their coats, buttoned up, and left. By then, they'd left the broken gravity field behind, and Hank was going on about the cop shows, that they weren't as good as they used to be.

The sky was clear. A steady wind was blowing out of the north.

“I mean,” said Hank, “the action's okay, but I never really get involved with the characters anymore. I don't know; maybe it's me.”

Hank had been an outfielder; Kohana had played second base. In
those days, he'd dreamed of going to the majors, playing eventually for the Twins. There'd been a pitcher with Devils Lake, Derek Grayson, a left hander, with a curve ball like a whip. It had been almost impossible to
see
what he threw, let alone hit it. After graduation, Derek had been signed by the Cubs and gone off to the minors. Two months later he was back. According to the story, everybody in Class D had hammered him. That was when Kohana realized there was no major-league career in his future. Eventually, he'd discovered a talent for moving property.

There was still some loose snow left over from the winter. A gust picked it up and formed a small whirlwind. “I don't enjoy the cop shows that much anymore either,” Kohana said. “I think it's because there are just so many ways you can do them, and we've seen them all.” They were walking past Bantam's Hardware. The store was dark, but music was coming from inside. Something that sounded like hip-hop. “Don't know why anybody listens to that stuff.”

Hank nodded and kept his hands jammed in his pockets.

“What've you got on for tomorrow, Hank?”

Hank was a volunteer for the Humane Society. “I'll be at the shelter most of the day,” he said.

Kohana couldn't get the baseball team out of his mind. The squad's captain, Ben Windrider, had been one of his closest friends. Ben had served in the army, had come home and gotten married. They were all playing ball together again in one of the independent leagues. But one evening, Ben, who'd been pitching, collapsed on the mound. He made Kohana and Hank promise not to tell his wife. “It's nothing,” he said, “and I don't want to worry her.”

They'd kept their word. Ben had died two weeks later from a brain aneurysm. They'd both wrestled with a sense of guilt for a long time after that, but they never talked about it. Kohana had eventually put it behind him. He wasn't sure why it was surfacing again while he walked those cold, empty streets.

“Do you think,” said Hank, “the Twins are going to turn it around this year?”

“They're off to a slow start,” Kohana said. He couldn't see it happening. But suddenly he was back in the daylight, charging a slow ground ball hit to his left. He didn't think he could get to it, and neither did Tawachi Lynch, their first baseman, who was calling him off. Ben, who was pitching, had broken for first to cover.

He pulled off to avoid a collision and watched the play unfold. Tawachi gobbled up the ball and flipped it toward the bag, where it arrived just as Ben did. The batter crossed a half step late, the umpire signaled out, and somewhere a crowd began cheering.

Kohana looked past first base at the stands. They were all on their feet. They'd retired the side. Ben circled around and started back across the infield toward the home bench, which was located on the third-base side. He glanced over at Kohana, and their eyes connected. Ben said something. He was too far away, and the noise too loud to hear it, but he recognized it anyhow. “Good move, Kohana.”

•   •   •

T
HE
NIGHT
WAS
back. And the frigid air. They'd both stopped walking. “What was that?” asked Kohana. “What just happened?”

“You saw it, too?” said Hank. He sounded shaken.

“Ben?”

“Yes! Ben and Tawachi! They were there.” Tawachi had long since moved to Minneapolis and dropped out of sight.

“Yeah. I saw it. The play at first.”

“Must have had too much beer.”

“No. Close play at first, right?”

“Yes.”

“How could we both have seen the same thing?”

•   •   •

B
RAD
FLEW
INTO
Washington Saturday night and arrived at CBS News Headquarters forty minutes before
Face the Nation
was scheduled to air.
They sent him to one of the makeup people, a young woman who asked him if it was really true that they were doing that
Star Trek
thing. “It's hard to believe,” she said. “Who figured out the technology?”

“That's a good question,” he said.

She patted his cheeks with powder. “Yes, it's really amazing. Anyhow, Mr. Hollister, you look great. Just use that smile when you're out there.”

She turned him over to one of the staff, who took him to the green room. Brad was shocked to discover that Bill Clinton, along with a couple of guys who were obviously Secret Service, were already there. “Mr. President. I didn't—” Brad stumbled over the words. “Uh, am I in the right place?”

Clinton smiled. “Sit down, please. I'm happy to meet you, Brad.”

“You're happy to meet
me
?” He looked around at the agents. Neither showed any reaction. He extended his hand. The former president
knew
who he was.

“I can't believe what's been happening these last few months. And I should tell you that I admire your courage, Brad. Is it okay if I call you
Brad
?”

“Sure. Yes, sir.” Brad caught his breath. “You can call me anything you like, Mr. President.”
Dumb,
he thought.

Clinton grinned. Then one of the agents pointed to the door. Another staff member had arrived. “Mr. President,” he said, “it's time.”

Clinton got up and shook his hand. “Good luck, Brad. Be careful out there.”

A young woman came in, bringing coffee and chocolate chip cookies. When she'd set them down she produced a remote and aimed it at a TV that Brad hadn't noticed. She turned it on to the CBS channel, which was running commercials. “I'll be back for you when it's time, Mr. Hollister,” she said. “It'll be about fifteen minutes.”

•   •   •

B
RAD
HAD
ALWAYS
thought of himself as cool under pressure.
Grand Forks Live
was ecstatically successful. He'd gone through his appearance on
Dakota Brief
smoothly, and had come in for
Face the Nation
without missing
a beat. But he sat frozen in his chair, watching as former President Clinton settled in with John Dickerson to discuss the Clinton Foundation's efforts to protect defenders of human rights in countries where those rights were routinely abused. “Sounds like dangerous territory,” said Dickerson.

Clinton nodded. “It is. And, unfortunately, there's an enormous amount of work still to do. I just met the young man who will be your next guest today, Brad Hollister, and I couldn't help thinking that we might actually be on the verge of moving out to other worlds, but we haven't yet made our own a safe place to live. And I'm not only talking about Africa and Asia. The United States has a long way to go, John. We still face a substantial level of racial prejudice. Women are still treated as second-class citizens—”

Brad was startled to hear his name mentioned. Okay, he told himself. Calm down. You can talk to John Dickerson. Just relax. He'll do the work, and all you have to do is respond. Nevertheless, for the first time since he'd started his career, he was scared of going on a public venue. Normally he
loved
having an audience. What was different this time?

The former president was still on-screen when the door opened. “Mr. Hollister? They're ready for you.”

•   •   •

J
OHN
D
ICKERSON
POSSESSED
an abundance of that most critical capability for an interviewer: He knew how to provide his guest with a sense that everything was okay. When the camera lights came on, and he welcomed Brad onto the set, the radio host found himself breathing again.

“Well,” said Dickerson, “we've had a lot of guests on
Face the Nation
over the years, but you're the first who can tell us what it's like to look back on the Milky Way. What was running through your mind when you were standing out there on that space station, Brad?”

A monitor was mounted on the wall so those on the set could see the broadcast picture. Brad and his host were currently on display, but they suddenly blinked off and were replaced by a picture of the long space station window and the galaxy.

“There's no way I can put it into words, John. You have to actually
be
there.”

“I can believe it. Is that really the Milky Way?”

“The experts are still trying to decide. But what I'm hearing, unofficially, is that they'd be shocked if it isn't.”

“So tell me what you were thinking, Brad.”

“I got a sense, for the first time in my life, how small the place is where we live. I grew up with the notion that we were the center of the universe. Grand Forks. The USA. Whatever. And, of course, eventually I read some books on astronomy and came to realize we're only a speck on a beach. But I never before really understood what that meant. You talk to some of the astrophysicists, and they'll tell you that people who walk around saying how we will eventually make ships that are going to take us to other stars have no clue what they're talking about. I had somebody on my show back home who told us that, moving at the speeds we have now, it would take fifty thousand years just to get to Alpha Centauri. That's the nearest star.

“And there are
billions
of them in the Milky Way. So we were standing in that station, wondering who built it, how it got there, and we could see the Milky Way, and there are
billions
of other galaxies, but they're so far you can't see them at all. Without a telescope, that is.”

“Yes,” said Dickerson. “I wonder if it ever ends. Or does it go on forever?”

“I don't think anybody knows.”

“Brad, who
did
put it there? The space station? Are there any theories? I assume there's no connection with the gorillas on Eden?”

“I don't think so, John. We've only been in touch with two of them. And by the way, we found out who they are.”

“And who are they?”

“Arkons. I hope sometime you get an opportunity to have one of them on the show. I think your audience would be pleasantly surprised.”

Dickerson smiled. “I'd love to have one of them, Brad. Any chance you can arrange it?”

“We might be able to do it later. You'd probably want to wait until one of them can speak English.”

“I understand they have books.”

“That's correct.”

“Amazing. So what's next on the agenda? What about that Riverwalk place? Are we ever going back there?”

“I don't think so. Not for a while anyhow. But there
are
other links.”

“Yes. We know one takes you to the space station. And the other to the place you call the Maze. Where they have that incredible view of Saturn. Or whatever.” The images Brad had secured while riding the roller coaster appeared on the monitor, which meant the audience was seeing them. “That's an absolutely incredible sky.”