Edward nodded, then raised the binoculars, spotting another climber. “Do you blame them?”

“No,” Minelli said quietly. “If I had a home or anybody I cared about — a woman, I mean — that’s where I’d be. I said good-bye to my sister and mom. They don’t know what the hell’s happening. They’re too ignorant to be scared. Mom says, ‘God will take care of us. We’re his children.’ Maybe He will. But if He doesn’t, I’m with you.

I don’t hold grudges. I can still admire the Old Dude’s masterworks.”

“It might be nice to be ignorant,” Edward said, lowering the binoculars.

Minelli shook his head adamantly. “At the end, I want to know what’s happening. I don’t want that…panic, when it comes. I want to know and sit and watch as much of it as I can. Maybe that’s the best seat in the house.” He pointed to the mottled rock face. “Up on top somewhere.”

Since Edward’s tent cabin had two bunks, he offered one to Minelli, but he turned it down. “Look,” he said, “they’re not even charging for them now. I asked down at the village and the fellows there say go ahead, sleep in one, just keep it clean yourself. Me, I’m going to want someone of the opposite sex with me when it happens. How about you?”

“That would be nice,” Edward agreed.

“All right, then. We party together, find women — some smart women, I mean, who know what’s going on as much as we do — and we party some more. I brought some food in with me, and the village store is stocked to the rafters with beer and wine and frozen food. We’re going to have a good time.”

At dusk, they showered and put on clean clothes and walked to the amphitheater, passing the wood-frame cabins. A middle-aged couple sat in folding chairs before the open door of a cabin, listening to a portable radio turned down low. They nodded greetings to each other.

“Going to the meeting?” Edward asked.

The man shook his head. “Not tonight,” he said. “It’s too peaceful tonight.”

“You’ll hear it from here, anyway,” Minelli warned.

The man and woman smiled and shooed them away.

“Tell us if there’s anything interesting.”

“Casual,” Minelli commented to Edward as they passed the Curry Village administration building and general store.

The valley was wrapped in cool shadow. Straying clouds obscured the tops of Half Dome and the Royal Arches. Edward zipped up his suede jacket. The amphitheater — benches arranged in curves before an elevated log and wood-beam stage — was full, people of all ages milling while engineers worked on the sound system. The loudspeakers popped and hummed; echoes of the crowd and the electronic noises bounced back at varying intervals from several directions. They found a bench halfway out from the stage and sat, watching the others, being watched in turn. A scruffy gray-bearded man of about sixty-five in a khaki bush jacket offered them unopened cans from a half-empty case of Coors and they accepted, popping and sipping as the gathering came to order.

A tall middle-aged park ranger climbed onto the stage and stood before the microphone, raising the stand to her level. “Hello,” she said, smiling.

The audience replied in kind, a low, warm murmur.

“My name — some of you know me already — is Elizabeth Rowell. There are about three hundred and fifty of us in the Yosemite now, and a few more coming in each day. I think we all know why we’re here. We’re all kind of surprised there aren’t more here, but some of us understand that, too. This is my home, and I plan on staying home.” She thrust out her jaw and looked around the audience. “So do others, and not many people live here year-around, as I do. Those of you who have left your homes to come here, you’re welcome to stay.

“We’re awfully lucky. Looks like the weather is going to be warm. It may drizzle off and on, but there’s not going to be much rain and no snow at all for a week or so, and all the passes are open. I just wanted to say that the park rules still apply, and we’re all behaving as if things are normal. If you need help, we’re fully staffed with rangers. Park police are on duty. We haven’t had any trouble, and we don’t expect any. You’re good folks.”

The man with the Coors box smiled and raised his can to that.

“Now, I am here basically to introduce folks. First, there’s Jackie Sandoval. Some of you know her already. She’s volunteered to be our spokesperson, sort of, tonight and for the rest of our stay. Jackie?”

A small, slender woman with long black hair and doll-like features came on stage. Rowell lowered the microphone for her.

“Hello,” she said, and again the warm sound emanated from the crowd in the amphitheater. “We’re here to celebrate, aren’t we?” Silence. “I think we are. We’re here to celebrate how far we’ve come, and to count our blessings. If what the experts tell us is true, we have three to four weeks to live in this wilderness, to appreciate the beauty and to think back on our lives. How many have had a chance for that kind of retrospective?

“We are a community — not just all of us here, but people everywhere. Some of us have stayed at home, and others have come here, perhaps because we recognize that all of Earth is our home. Each night, if we wish, if we all agree, we’ll gather in the amphitheater and share our dinner, perhaps have people sing for us; we’ll be a family. As Elizabeth said, all are welcome. I noticed some bikers camped at Sunnyside. They haven’t caused any trouble, I’ve been told, and they are welcome. Maybe for once in our history we can all be together, and appreciate what we can share. Tonight, I’ve asked Mary and Tony Lampedusa to sing for us, and then there’s going to be a dance at the Yosemite Village visitor center. I hope you’ll come.

“First, there’s a couple of announcements. We’re pooling our books and videotapes and such at the Ahwanee to make a kind of library. Anybody who wants to contribute is welcome. The park service has chipped in a lot of books about Yosemite and the Sierras. I’m the librarian, so to speak, so talk to me if you want to read anything, or donate anything.

“Oh. We’re also arranging for a music library. We have fifty portable optical disk players used for recorded park tours and about three hundred music disks. If you want to donate more, anything is appreciated. Now, here’s Tony and Mary Lampedusa.”

Edward sat with the half-full beer can between his knees and listened to the high, sweet folksinging. Minelli shook his head and wandered off before they were done. “See you at the dance,” he whispered to Edward in passing.

The dance began slowly on the open-air wooden deck of the visitors’ center. A ranger’s powerful stereo system provided the music, mostly rock tunes from the eighties.

About half the people in the park were single. Some who weren’t single acted as if they were, and a few arguments broke out among couples. Edward heard one man telling his wife, “Christ, you know I love you, but doesn’t this make anything different? Aren’t we all supposed to be together here?” The woman, shaking her head tearfully, was having none of that.

Minelli had no luck finding a partner. His appearance — short, on the edge of unkempt, his grin a little too manic — did not attract the fit, well-groomed single females. He glanced at Edward across the open-air pavilion and shrugged expressively, then pointed at him and held a hand out, thumbs up. Edward shook his head.

Everybody was on edge that night, which was only to be expected. Edward stood to one side, unwilling to approach a woman just yet, willing only to watch and evaluate.

The dance ended early. “Not a great dance,” Minelli commented as they walked in the dark back to Camp Curry. They separated near the public showers to go to their separate tent cabins.

Edward was not ready for sleep, however. Flashlight in hand, he walked west along a trail and came to the Happy Isles, where he stood on a wood bridge and listened to the Merced. In the distance, he could hear Vernal and Nevada falls roaring with snowmelt. The river ran high on the bridge pilings, black as pitch in the deeps, dark blue-gray in turbulence.