On Enchanted Rock

"Do you have the number for the ranger station?" You heard her voice almost before you saw her, this woman with a sun hat shading her face.

You said, "No, I'm sorry." But the man that you love, the man sitting with you to look at the vista you'd declared breathtaking, said, "Wait. I have the park map." On the top he found the number.

"Is someone sick?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Chest pains?" he asked. It was almost a joke, something so unlikely in a place where water gathers in vernal pools that fill with the brightest green grasses.

But she was gone.

It was your wedding anniversary. Eight years. You'd taken the day off work to be together, away from your house, where you weren't talking about what needed to be done. You'd climbed to the top of Enchanted Rock, a massive dome of pink granite in the Texas Hill Country a few hours from your home.

There were no trails, just a sloping face of rock dotted sometimes with clusters of yellow flowers. You'd walked slowly, pausing to catch your breath, turning to remark on the view. It was a day so clear it seemed you could see forever.

Now you sat on the dome's far side looking across to hills and a small lake, sipping water from a green metal bottle. Your skin prickled with the exertion of the climb.

You had brought a poem, one you read to the man that you love, one that ends with the lines,

and how, if we could, we'd repeat itthis life, many times,many times.

You sat in the hush that follows a good poem, his hand folded over yours.

Then you thought you heard yelling. Distant, dismissible. And then, clearer.

"Papa! Papa!"

You stepped together out of the moment with its layered landscape, walked back to the top, and saw them on the horizon. A knot of people bent over a body, a man in a red shirt. Someone pumping his chest.

"Keep pumping!" yelled the man that you love, and then he ran. "Keep pumping!"

You followed.

The woman in the sun hat knelt beside the body, a phone pressed to her ear. So calm, so present. A man pushed on the chest. Another man in a black baseball cap cupped his hands under the head, keeping it off the hard surface. Several feet away an older woman—she could only be the wife—and a younger man clung to each other.

And now the man that you love was the one pumping.

"Paul, Paul, can you hear me?" the woman asked. She spoke English. She spoke French. English to the doctor now directing her on the phone's other end. French to the people who clung to each other. English as she answered the questions.

"Seventy."

"No history."

"It's a satellite phone. We're visiting from overseas."

Paul did not respond.

The woman counted out the rhythm from the doctor. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 1, 2, 3, 4. The men took turns. They were not young, not practiced. They grew tired. Then the man that you love noticed another man, one tanned and hale in salmon shorts.

"Hey, buddy," he yelled. "We need you."

The man walked toward the scene. "Faster!" yelled the man that you love. He ran. He knelt beside the body. He took over.

You began to understand: You were on top of a massive dome of pink granite, a massive dome of pink granite eighteen miles from the nearest town. There was no road, no trail, no shortcut. You were alone, the small group of you, gathered around this man. This Paul.

"Tell them we need a helicopter," said the man that you love, and the woman said, "Can you send a helicopter?"

The men kept pumping, spotting each other, leaving as little time as possible as they switched. The woman kept counting 1, 2, 3, 4 and 1, 2, 3, 4. One time Paul seemed to choke, to gurgle, and they rolled him sideways, cleared his mouth. They...