CHAPTER 3

Chaco dragged himself home from the Walkers’ and dropped into bed exhausted, but no matter how many times he changed positions or flipped his pillow, he couldn’t get comfortable. He recited Pablo Neruda’sEl Amor by memory, counted backward from 500, and mentally replayed the hits and runs of his softball games as a boy in the streets of Soyapango.

He tried to remember Mirabella’s face, her even white teeth, her delicate ears, her inquisitive black eyes. Chaco could not remember her smile, not exactly. His memories of her seeped into his thoughts like a vapor, then, poof, they disappeared. He recalled the dress, though. The last time he’d seen her, she’d worn a bright yellow sundress printed with ridiculous huge red poppies. When she walked, the dress rustled as though made of crepe paper. Yes, he liked that dress with the silly flowers very much.

Mostly, though, he thought of the woman he now loved, different from his Mirabella as any woman could be. How is it he had fallen so hard for this tall, leggy, robust American girl with light sea colored eyes that squinted shut when she laughed? What might she be doing right now in this dark world? Sleeping and dreaming of angels? Maybe she’d been awake turning in her bed thinking of him, too.

Chaco rose, ventured outside and considered the night sky. Great swaths of blue and green swirls lit the darkness, mesmerizing him. “The Aurora Borealis in southern California? Jesus.” He watched for a long while, took dozens of photos with his cell, then out of habit, shut it off to conserve the battery. Exhausted, Chaco returned to bed. On his back, with his comforter pulled to his chin, he absorbed the absolute blackness of his cabin. He thought about what it would be like to be blind. “How could I live if I could never see the stars again?”

A few minutes before dawn, he gave up on sleep, climbed out of bed, poured water from plastic bottles into a basin, and washed his face. Chaco lit an oil lamp, retrieved the camp stove from its place under the sink, and made a pot of strong coffee. After pouring a cup, he stirred in one level teaspoon of raw sugar.

With full mug in hand, he stepped outside, removed the dust cap from his Coronado SolarMax, adjusted the aperture, and scanned the Sun’s surface. He took a sip of coffee, cranked up the magnification to get a better view, and that’s when he choked. Electro-magnetic pipes the size of Earth appeared as giant sunspots, releasing millions of tons of plasma. “Shit no. These are even larger than those I viewed a few days ago. I’ve got to talk to Javier again. Man, if these others hit, too, we are triple-screwed.”

The solar disruptions Chaco observed were monsters, but without more sophisticated equipment, he couldn’t be sure how large they really were. With the power out, he couldn’t get on the helioscience sites. He reached for his copy of “The Sun, The Earth, and Near Earth Space Guide,” but changed his mind. He needed to talk to Javier. He picked up his cell and had begun to key in the digits when he rememberedno service.

***

The Pennymons, Walkers and Chaco gathered on the Walkers’ patio, the atmosphere heavy and muggy. Although nearing 4 p.m., the outside temperature gauge registered 101 degrees. Without air conditioning, the covered patio by the pool seemed the only place to escape the punishing heat. Incredulous that Margo and Rocky were intent on finding a way to still host their annual “Cowboy Jamboree Brew and Bones Barbecue,” Chaco’s neck muscles constricted.

In their early forties, neither served any apparent purpose. The couple spent much of their time in five-star resorts on Galveston Island. They dined in chain steak restaurants at places calledThe Texas Meat Cleaver andBig Hunter Steakhouse, which to them, represented the epitome of haute cuisine. In the summer, they threw catered barbeques for which they ordered cases of Lone Star beer, brought in hay bales for seating, and hired Country Western bands dressed in corny outfits complete with felt cowboy hats and red bandanas.

Margo, wearing a peacock blue spandex dress so short that with each step she nearly flashed her privates, clip-clopped across the