Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon 2)

Emerson went to wake Vernon and Wayan Bagus. “Concentration.”

“Doesn’t sound too hard.”

“There’s a catch. You have to learn to concentrate for a sustained period of time. It’s much harder than it sounds. Try to focus your mind on one thing.”

“Like what?”

“Something simple to start.” He picked up one of the strawberries from the platter. “Like this piece of fruit.” He held it up in front of Riley. “Try to think about only this strawberry and nothing else.”

Riley concentrated on the strawberry. “Have I disappeared yet?”

Emerson smiled. “Most people can’t concentrate for more than a couple seconds before their mind starts to wander to all sorts of things. The other fruit on the platter. The person standing in front of you. What you ate for lunch. If you were able to focus on that strawberry and only on that strawberry for even just one full minute, Wayan Bagus would tell you that you might be able to learn one of the siddhi.”

“If that’s true, why isn’t the world full of clairvoyants?”

“It can take decades, even a lifetime, to train your mind this way. Most people will never be able to do it. Once in a rare while, you might be able to do i

t for a short time and get a glimpse of that world. Haven’t you ever had a moment of déjà vu or a premonition of something?”

Riley focused on the strawberry. After a few seconds, her mind drifted to the missing newlyweds. Emerson had a way of making the impossible sound reasonable. “Maybe,” she said.

TEN

A rented Ford Explorer was waiting on the tarmac of the Jackson Hole Airport. Riley left the plane and walked to the SUV. She looked at the snow-capped Teton mountains in the distance, and took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp air. The town of Jackson was the sole vestige of civilization in the area. It was about seven miles south of the airport and completely surrounded by the Gros Ventre Wilderness. To the north was Grand Teton National Park and beyond that Yellowstone.

They piled into the car and drove out of the airport, turning left on U.S. Highway 26. After a couple miles, Riley exited the main highway onto the more scenic Teton Park Road. They passed crystal clear Jenny Lake and a couple miles later, fifteen-mile-long Jackson Lake came into view. They drove in silence along the lake, appreciating the natural beauty of the wilderness, the occasional elk at the side of the road, and even a grizzly bear rummaging through the marsh.

“This really is the middle of nowhere,” Riley said.

Emerson was reading through the Yellowstone guidebook. “Yellowstone is home to sixty-seven different mammals, including bears, wolves, bison, cougars, wolverines, bighorn sheep, beavers, and coyotes.”

“I sure would like to see a beaver or two on this here vacation,” Vernon said, ducking before Wayan Bagus could slap the back of his head.

The scenery became increasingly dramatic, and after a little over an hour of driving they passed through Yellowstone’s South Entrance. Conifers covered rugged hillsides. Streams meandered through high country meadows. Smoking pools of geothermally heated water dotted the landscape, and huge hairy bison grazed along the side of the road and posed for photos, slowing traffic through the park to a near standstill.

At Yellowstone Lake, Riley turned left onto the Grand Loop Road. A little later, a huge rustic-looking log hotel with a steeply pitched shingled roof and gables came into view. Riley pulled up to the front entrance, and a valet parked the car.

Vernon looked up at the building and whistled. “That’s one big log cabin.”

“The biggest in the world,” Emerson said. “Even more impressive considering that it was built back in 1903.”

Riley, Vernon, and Wayan Bagus walked through the front doors and explored the lobby while Emerson got their room keys from the front desk. Like the exterior, the inside of the hotel was luxuriously rustic, constructed from logs and four stories tall with balconies encircling each level. A massive stone fireplace with a beautiful ironwork clock and hearths on all four sides dominated the space.

There was a steady exodus of people from the lobby. It had been almost an hour since the last eruption of Old Faithful and crowds were beginning to form outside to watch six thousand gallons of boiling water shoot up to 180 feet in the air.

“I have to admit this would be pretty awesome, if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a secret society of crazy park rangers after us,” Riley said to Emerson when he returned.

“So you have finally come around,” Emerson said. “You acknowledge the Rough Riders.”

“I acknowledge something. I’m not sure what it is.”

He handed her a room key. “I rather think the possible presence of the Rough Riders adds to the experience. The difference between adventure and adversity is attitude.”

“It’s hard to have a good attitude about someone trying to throw you off a balcony,” Riley said.

It was five P.M., and a tour group was forming, led by a pretty twenty-something-year-old park ranger wearing a gray two-pocket shirt, green shorts with a belt, and a broad-brimmed khaki campaign hat. About a dozen hotel guests were standing in a circle around her, waiting for the last tour of the day to begin.

Wayan Bagus pointed at the park ranger. “Emerson,” he whispered. “That’s the same uniform the men who forced me off my island were wearing, except the shirt and pants are a different color.”