OCR Text |
Show 415 confident step, able to see every rock in his way, every piece of broken timber over which he might have fallen, even though it was three o'clock in the morning and there was no moon, made his way through sagebrush and juniper to his car, though he had wandered from it a long way, and had driven away, unerringly selecting the correct dirt road that was indistinguishable from every other dirt road, knowing precisely at which point to drive over an embankment into the dry river bed and how far along in which direction to follow the bed before climbing the other side and confronting another bewildering maze of rutted trails, of which he would select the right one, his rods and cones reproportioned miraculously, his sense of choice touched by divine hands in the dark, and Lorin was glad when it was over and the woman from the mortuary sang the 23rd psalm, which Alicebeth, he suspected, would have been happy to sing if she had been asked. He caught up to them in the dark corridor, his father stumbling between them as they guided him around brooms and buckets and old typewriters. They stopped at a doorway covered by an iron lattice. The old man pressed a button and the floor vibrated. When the car had settled into place they got on and leaned his father in a corner where he stared at the lighted numbers above the door as the elevator shuddered and began to move. Hope we don't stop between floors, said the old woman. The old man grunted. They ascended slowly while the last speaker, Rex Evans, the elders' quorum president, stood up and walked to the pulpit, buttoning his coat. Lorin glanced at his mother. She looked interested. Stephen was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head between his hands. He ran his fingers through his long hair as though looking for something to pull. Rex, it seemed, was just going to read some things that Charles had liked. He cleared his throat and took his glasses out of his breast |