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. . . that morning he felt as if something significant had been missing. |
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He glanced down into the valley and let his eye follow a silver ribbon of water as it snaked between dun-colored mountains, their tops dusted with powdery patches of white. At that altitude, winter came early. By September the aspens were already as much gold as green and the Rocky Mountain dwarf maples looked like they were on fire. By mid-October, their limbs were bare, bleak, dead. |
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After surviving a cursory customs inspection at the border, they crossed into Canada at Waterton Park and ate lunch at the park cafeteria. Later, they drove past seemingly endless fields of grain surrounding Calgarya city of over half a million secure in the belief that all the real cowboys left in the world resided there. |
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Kyna had reservations at the posh Canadian Pacific Hotel that stood like a twenty-story exclamation mark next to Calgary's airport. While she was at the front desk going through the check-in ritual, Cyrus strolled through the stadium-sized lobby. It was an impressive place. Half of the floor space was taken up by a heated swimming pool and the other half by a steamy jungle of potted plants and trees. This sweltering combination gave the lobby all the homey ambience of a South American rain forest. The center of the building was enclosed under a huge circular dome and ringed by floors that appeared to extend all the way to the mesosphere. Four bullet-shaped express elevators were located strategically around the lobby, ready to whisk weary travelers up to their waiting rooms. As Cyrus watched, one of these modern marvels blasted off, and he figured anyone unwise enough to stay in the penthouse would get a nosebleed before they reached their room. |
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Kyna finished at the desk and set out like Henry Stanley to track down her Dr. Livingstone. Ten minutes later she found him loitering in the palms behind the hot tubs, watching two coeds from Wisconsin soak off their jet lag. |
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"Pervert!" Kyna said, and marched off toward the elevator. |
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"No. You don't understand," Cyrus insisted as he hurried |
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