appeared from the clearing edge and Merilee has given to Stefan her understanding of how to get to the TR. But no matter, Sam will remember. In Wedded We, as opposed to Single I, no one needs remember every detail. Mental burdens shared, one of the many blessings of the life of conjoined souls. Touching Alfred's thin ear, she peacefully watches the day bloom in earnest over the San Bernadino Valley.

Alfred snuffling about her. Alfred coming in. Watchit Alfred, bad karma. Bad karma too in Sam's judicial face watched her while she was ministering to young Stefan. Samson the hidebound eastern mutt. Merilee finds her dress and pulls it on over her head. She goes lightly barefoot to the edge of the canyon, expecting still her other half is nearby and waiting for her.

SAM! she calls. SAM?

From the chasm an echo: sam! sam?

Such things must not be. If Merilee gets lost, that's OK. She has survival capabilities, tribal knowledge. But poor Sam. She wonders how she could affix at least a Boy Scout handbook to him. Especially difficult since in the wilds he is always shucking off his clothes. Maybe we could tattoo the vital information to his white body.

An Ada rap once. Mama isn't fooled by much, and so she undertook, with suspicious curling about her mouth, to tell Merilee the following: ". . . and those hippic girls you know, they're such dope fiends they get so hopped up on their dope you know what they do? they forget their own little babies and leave them in the streets that's what they do you know . . ."

Wide-eyed Merilee said "Oh Mama."

"Don't you ohmama me. I read it all the time in the papers."

"But Mama, no woman would ever forget her baby. That's just untrue. Your baby is part and parcel of your mind naturally like your man is-"

Merilee looking at Ada. Ada looking at Merilee. The whole story in intricate detail passing between them of how Ada abandoned the man with the black grease stains and the big jaw.

SAMSAM! she calls. samsam! she hears. And then a bright hilltop away she spots him. He knows she's calling. He stops to listen and his zooming face is the face of a small boy who has blamed his thumb with his own hammer. He tells Girl the obedient to come and they disappear miserably into the next small valley. Cast out of Eden over a little misunderstanding. And the angel has not a flaming sword but only love to offer them. As she starts barefoot after them, old Alfred whines and the angel tells him "Bad karma Alfred. You stay." He comes though, lacing himself in her footsteps all the way down the first barranca. The angel kicks him. Alfred howls.

25. Like a rolling stone

Out of the forest now and moving down, swinging in great ares along the desert steep sides of the mountains, Merilee's self is a windshield wiper screeching on dry glass. A tarantula fuzzy black with age scurries out of her way and stuffs himself almost all back into his hole. Spider at least has a home to go to. Sun burning and no moisture anywhere but the sticky-salty tastes from Merilee's eyes. GIRL! she is calling.

Once little Merilee saw an animal kicked. And swore on the spot never to kick an animal. Now the vow has been betrayed. Dear Alfred. She is writing him a letter. In this heat even rattle snakes entwine in the shade of a cactus. And on torrid desert updrafts eagles cushion themselves for making eggs fertile. But we humans were not meant for such comforts. Longings we may have, sensations that alone we are incomplete. Organs for coupling and mouths for communication. But pity us, old Alfred. We are, finally, not built for it. Togethered, humans lose their selves, forget their sacred vows. Togethered, we learn to kick dogs.

What happened? The angel who went in search of her castout boy soon realized she had to give him up for lost, the blond girl who overreached in a single day light clambered down a 1600 foot escarpment. She learned. She discovered Ada was right, and paid the price. She ended up face down in a ravine at sunset, belly aching and self broken open and bleeding red and sweet like a pomegranate. When Merilee crashed at the bottom of a nameless and uncharted pit, she was too gone to be afraid of the snakes and scorpions who came to view her Gulliverian hugeness, too exhausted to make it to the next ridge and the twilight blue beyond it. Little girls with broken hearts would make the bravest soldiers. Beyond the loss of hope there is nothing very fearful.