The Cloud Atlas

“Damn you,” she said, staring hard, breathing hard. “You're not a damn cop, are you? Or an MP? Because they've been through. And things were taken care of.” She'd been moving on me as she spoke, and before I knew it, I'd stuttered back half a step.

She frowned. “You're not a cop.”

“Ma'am,” I said, touching my hat like I'd seen the good cowboys do in the movies. “I'm sorry.” I looked down at her legs. They started where the shirt stopped, and descended, smooth, brown, and, here and there, bruised, into those boots.

“I said no laughing,” she said quietly. “I wear boots. So do you. It's cold. Welcome to Alaska.” She scuffed at the floor. “Why do boys get so hung up on the boots?” she asked, and then left the doorway to walk around me. “There's a discount if you've got some cigarettes.” I didn't. “And sometimes a discount if you're a gentleman.”

That's when she saw my shoulder insignia: that bright red bomb, fat and finned and ready to drop. On a trip into Anchorage a few years ago, I saw the patch disposal guys wear now-our World War II-era bomb is still there, but smaller, crowded by a base of lightning and laurels. Naturally, I prefer the one we wore. Nothing but that bomb, the red brighter than blood. People's eyes usually caught there a moment, but Lily did more than that. She flinched slightly, like I'd raised a hand to hit her.

“Well, hello!” she said, or stammered, unable now to meet my eye. I relaxed, sure that I was intimidating her rather than the other way around. A pause followed as we both tried to figure out something to say.

But a sharp voice behind me figured it out for us: “Problem here?”

I could feel someone step around me, and then, there he was: thin, taller, blond, milky blue eyes scanning Lily and me. “Young man getting out of line, Miss Lily?” he asked.

I could tell two things by his insignia: he, too, was in bomb disposal, but more important, he outranked me. Once he discovered the same, he smiled.

I shook my head, but turned to Lily: Had I been out of line, somehow?

“No,” Lily said. She laughed weakly, gave me a questioning look- surely this man and I knew each other?-and then retreated deeper into the office.

“No,” I mumbled.

“Good night,” the man said, not even looking at me. I felt like I was moving out the door without really moving my feet.

“Right,” I said, but by then I was outside, the door was closing.

Before it shut completely, Lily shouted for me to wait. The door eased open again, and I could see her rustling around in the room's pile of blankets while the man watched. As soon as I realized my vantage point afforded me a somewhat intimate view of her backside, I looked away. The other man did not. I looked again.

Lily came back with a closed fist, and pressed something into my left hand. “Your change,” she said, waiting until I met her gaze before she let go.

I shook my head, but only slightly and the man cut off any protest. “Make haste, young man.” He drew back and looked at me with disdain. “Change?” He exhaled. “As for myself, I intend to get my money's worth.” He turned to Lily. “Mademoiselle?” he said, and I left.

I DIDN'T REALIZE for several blocks that my hands were two fists in my pockets. Only then did I unclench, and only then, with a huddled display of instruments in a music store window looking over my shoulder, did I pull out my change and examine it. She'd given me a dollar. On it, she'd written a message. A very short message, actually, all she had had time to write: “ 11.”

I looked around, refolded the bill, and continued down the street. For whatever reason, I started walking faster and faster, until I reached the main road out to Fort Richardson. By then I was running, sure in some vague way that someone was pursuing me. But when I finally allowed myself to glance back into Anchorage 's blackout dark, I couldn't see anyone at all.

WHAT I FEARED then is what Ronnie fears now, and has feared for some time: the unseen forces that hound you through the night.

Old explorers who first witnessed this phenomenon struggled for words to describe it; eventually they settled on arctic hysteria. The affliction did not discriminate: both Natives and Outsiders occasionally succumbed to some force-often during this very time of year, deep winter, which is characterized less by snow than endless dark-that caused them to strip off their clothes and run outside, into the cold, into the tundra. If they're not caught in time, some wound up (wind up) running into the great beyond.