The Triggerman Dance

Then the Rover seemed to stand up, and John found himself leaning forward, facing the dashboard, hearing the groan of the differential and the skidding of tires beneath him. The road rose steeply, leveled off, then rose again. Then came a long series of switchbacks, still rising. Finally the road leveled. A few minutes later, they rolled into a wide turnout, and Holt parked.

"Top of the World," he said.

They climbed another fifty yards to the top. The peak was leveled and graveled. Three large white marble vaults stood in a semi-circle at the far end of the level ground, facing a large stone table and benches. Atop each of the vaults was a statue. But John's eyes were drawn to the doors of the vaults, their rich gold shining in the sun.

"We're at 1,300 feet," said Holt. "Highest part of the Ridge. Best view."

John looked back to the south, in the direction from which they had come, then down to the windswept spectacle of Liberty Ridge. The lake, from this angle, was a deep cobalt blue, the island in its middle a circle of bright green. The hillsides rose above the lake and rolled for miles. The big house was a white box with a reddish roof and windows that threw the sun back at him in blinding silver rectangles. The outbuildings stretched out from it in a diminishing semi-circle. From here, John could see just how large the park-like grounds around the compound were, and how small the tennis courts, helipad and aviary looked. And all of this was bordered by the two hundred acres of Valencia oranges, which from here looked like a green ocean speckled wit orange fish.

"Not the same at night. Even from the observation deck."

"No," said John.

"Assessor taxes me on twenty-four mil. If I subdivided an went commercial/residential, you'd be talking a lot more."

"Are you going to do that?"

"Hell no. I'll protect this place 'til the day I die here. Let me show you exactly where I'll be buried. Got it all set up."

They approached the vaults. Patrick's was on the left. His bronze likeness stood casually, with a couple of books in h hand, like a student pausing between classes.

"I'll always remember Pat as a reader," said Holt. "That Carolyn and I—the sculptor based it on an old wedding picture.

The bronze Holts stood arm-in-arm like wedding-cake-figures, but the sculptor had cast details into their faces that made them seem almost human. "Carolyn's insistence. She is a romantic. Was, anyway."

Valerie's was to the right, flanking her mother and father She was portrayed mid-step, with a springer spaniel trotted along beside her.

"Nice," said John.

"Just had it done last year," Holt said. "Wanted her to look adult. Val liked it. Said the whole thing up here is ostentatious and I can't argue that. So a man's proud of his family. Of himself. No harm there. Doors to the crypts are finished in gold. Something, isn't it, the way they catch the sun up here?"

"It's very beautiful."

"Come in. I'll show you Pat's urn."

Holt swung open the heavy door and John stepped inside the cool marble vault.

"You don't lock them?"

"Don't lock much of anything on Liberty Ridge. Don't need to, which is just the way I designed it. There, that urn's got Patrick’s ashes inside."

It was a stout, low rectangle that looked to John like black marble. Holt stared at it and sighed. "I don't expect it to mean much to you."

"Well, that's not the point of it."

"Sure isn't. God, I do miss that boy. Anyway, that's the inside of Pat's place. "

Holt let John pass back out, then pushed the door closed. The gold, stamped with images of birds rising in flight, flashed in the sun.

"Really something," John said.

They walked to the edge of the gravel and looked out. "It's Val's now. I've made enough pesos to see her great-great-grandchildren through their lives. It's all paid for. Won't break it up. Ever."

John breathed in the hot dry air. With the Santa Anas blowing from the northeast, the brush on the hillsides shivered stiffly and the lake rippled with uniform wedges. The ocean, far off to the west, looked bright and flat as a sheet of new foil.

John could see the little chain of buildings that housed the Liberty Ops execs. He watched as a platoon of Holt Men— miniature soldiers in their black uniforms—loaded into four orange-and-black patrol vans.

"It'll be gone soon," said Holt.

"I thought it would be here for Valerie's great—"

"—Oh, Liberty Ridge will. But the rest of the county will fester up around it like acne. This is what it was. This is what our berserk and murderous ancestors lived and died for. The West. Manifest Destiny. The California Dream. All those nonspecific words. Well, here's the specificity. Here it is, the soul of what people wanted. Look at it."

John gazed to the north, where the hillsides gave way to the endless housing tracts of Orange County.

"Not that direction," said Holt. "That's the future. Ugly baby, isn't it? Look south or west and look real hard, because what you see won't be there long."