Shadow of the Solstice EPB by Anne Hillerman

Author:Anne Hillerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2025-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

Darleen and Greg left Shiprock together, first cruising south on 491 south past the hogback and the looming mysterious lava formations that Darleen thought of as little siblings to the magnificent Ship Rock. They picked up Interstate 40 in Gallup and began to head west, driving into the strong light of the late afternoon light past signs announcing exit 311, for Petrified Forest National Park.

“I wonder what a petrified forest looks like.” Darleen watched the exit grow closer. “Have you ever been there?”

“Nope.” Greg signaled and pulled into the left lane to pass a Honda sedan. “I’d like to go someday. I think petrified wood is interesting, you know? But not this time of year. Too stinking hot.”

“I’d like to see the forest sometime, too. What if the trees were still standing and the needles or leaves had turned to stone, too? Petrified Forest. The name makes me think of a movie where a monster, maybe a flame monster, shows up, and the trees are so frightened they just turn to stone. Then he can’t burn them.”

“Is that a real movie?”

“No. I just made it up.”

“You’re clever,” he said. “Good imagination. Droid is like that, too. Got that from his mom.”

Darleen adjusted the air-conditioning on her side of the SUV. The vehicle was too cool for her taste with the air on full blast. The thermometer on the dashboard said it was ninety outside. She was glad to be in Greg’s newer vehicle.

“We could call it Petrified in the Petrified Forest. The hero is a shape-shifter made of water who drowns the flame monster.”

“I like it.” Greg sighed. “I’m petrified that something terrible has happened to Droid. If I lose him after losing his mother so quickly to cancer last year, my heart would turn to stone.”

Darleen wondered how her heart and her brain would handle the grief when Mama died. She and Bernie had witnessed their mother’s steady decline for several years. Like the years it took for wood to become rock, or the gentle force of raindrops steadily eroding a mountainside, losing Mama was a slow, ongoing process.

“Tell me about your wife. I’m sorry she died.”

Greg was silent for a few moments. “She was my first love. We were married twenty years, and it wasn’t long enough. I miss her smile, her warmth, her quirks. I think of her every day.

“We met when we were in high school and got married when she graduated from college in Durango. She taught first grade for a while, but quit teaching after Droid was born. When he started middle school, she was ready to get back to the classroom. Took some courses, filled out the employment applications, all that took a while. She got a good job offer and we celebrated. But when she went in for her work physical, something was wrong.”

He shook his head, as if to dislodge what came next. “The doctors never said why she got cancer or how, but I blame leetso. The water, the soil, too much contamination from all the mining and milling.

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