Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(22)

“Thank you for thinking my hair is pretty,” Riley said.

“No problem,” Emerson said.

“So, what are Wayan Bagus’s special talents? Can he really disappear?” she asked.

Emerson gave a noncommittal shrug. “Some Taoists believe that it’s possible to develop certain supernatural powers, or siddhi.”

“Like being able to disappear.”

“Something like that,” Emerson said. “One of the siddhi is supposed to be the ability to move the body wherever thought goes.”

“Are there any others?”

“There are five primary siddhi. They include clairvoyance, being able to tolerate extremes of heat and cold, and being able to read minds. There’s also a bunch of secondary ones. Things like being undisturbed by hunger or thirst, being able to hear or see things far away, being able to assume any form desired, and being able to make yourself very big or very small.”

“Your Aunt Myra calls it all a lot of hogwash and magic tricks,” Riley said.

“It’s difficult to dispute Aunt Myra. On the other hand, there are things that defy explanation.”

The plane landed and taxied down the Jackson Hole Airport runway. Emerson gathered his papers up and dumped them into his knapsack.

“If you had told somebody in the year 1800 that there were invisible things called germs and that they were responsible for the common cold, he would have thought that you were crazy and believed in magic,” Emerson said. “Today, everybody simply accepts it as fact, despite that they’ve never seen or knowingly touched a germ.”

“Assuming it’s possible, how would you go about learning to read minds or make yourself small?”

Emerson went to wake Vernon and Wayan Bagus. “Concentration.”

“Doesn’t sound too hard.”

“There’s a catch. You have to learn to concentrate for a sustained period of time. It’s much harder than it sounds. Try to focus your mind on one thing.”

“Like what?”

“Something simple to start.” He picked up one of the strawberries from the platter. “Like this piece of fruit.” He held it up in front of Riley. “Try to think about only this strawberry and nothing else.”

Riley concentrated on the strawberry. “Have I disappeared yet?”

Emerson smiled. “Most people can’t concentrate for more than a couple seconds before their mind starts to wander to all sorts of things. The other fruit on the platter. The person standing in front of you. What you ate for lunch. If you were able to focus on that strawberry and only on that strawberry for even just one full minute, Wayan Bagus would tell you that you might be able to learn one of the siddhi.”

“If that’s true, why isn’t the world full of clairvoyants?”

“It can take decades, even a lifetime, to train your mind this way. Most people will never be able to do it. Once in a rare while, you might be able to do it for a short time and get a glimpse of that world. Haven’t you ever had a moment of déjà vu or a premonition of something?”

Riley focused on the strawberry. After a few seconds, her mind drifted to the missing newlyweds. Emerson had a way of making the impossible sound reasonable. “Maybe,” she said.





TEN




ARENTED FORD EXPLORER WAS WAITING ON THE tarmac of the Jackson Hole Airport. Riley left the plane and walked to the SUV. She looked at the snow-capped Teton mountains in the distance, and took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp air. The town of Jackson was the sole vestige of civilization in the area. It was about seven miles south of the airport and completely surrounded by the Gros Ventre Wilderness. To the north was Grand Teton National Park and beyond that Yellowstone.

They piled into the car and drove out of the airport, turning left on U.S. Highway 26. After a couple miles, Riley exited the main highway onto the more scenic Teton Park Road. They passed crystal clear Jenny Lake and a couple miles later, fifteen-mile-long Jackson Lake came into view. They drove in silence along the lake, appreciating the natural beauty of the wilderness, the occasional elk at the side of the road, and even a grizzly bear rummaging through the marsh.

“This really is the middle of nowhere,” Riley said.

Emerson was reading through the Yellowstone guidebook. “Yellowstone is home to sixty-seven different mammals, including bears, wolves, bison, cougars, wolverines, bighorn sheep, beavers, and coyotes.”

“I sure would like to see a beaver or two on this here vacation,” Vernon said, ducking before Wayan Bagus could slap the back of his head.

The scenery became increasingly dramatic, and after a little over an hour of driving they passed through Yellowstone’s South Entrance. Conifers covered rugged hillsides. Streams meandered through high country meadows. Smoking pools of geothermally heated water dotted the landscape, and huge hairy bison grazed along the side of the road and posed for photos, slowing traffic through the park to a near standstill.

At Yellowstone Lake, Riley turned left onto the Grand Loop Road. A little later, a huge rustic-looking log hotel with a steeply pitched shingled roof and gables came into view. Riley pulled up to the front entrance, and a valet parked the car.

Vernon looked up at the building and whistled. “That’s one big log cabin.”

“The biggest in the world,” Emerson said. “Even more impressive considering that it was built back in 1903.”