It was mid-morning in California; it was evening in the Greek isles. The last of the sun's disk had vanished as two men reached the top of the granite knob. In the east a first star showed. Far below them, Greek peasants were driving overloaded donkeys through a maze of low stone walls and vineyards.
The town of Akrotira lay in twilight. Incongruities: white mudwalled houses that might have been created ten thousand years ago; the Venetian fortress at the top of its hill; the modern school near the ancient Byzantine church; and below that, the camp where Willis and MacDonald were uncovering Atlantis. The site was almost invisible from the hilltop. In the west a star switched on and instantly off, blink. Then another. "It's started," MacDonald said.
Wheezing, Alexander Willis settled himself on the rock. He was mildly irritated. The hour's climb had left him breathless, though he was twenty-four years old and considered himself in good shape. But MacDonald had led him all the way and helped him over the top, and MacDonald, whose dark red hair had receded to expose most of his darkly tanned scalp, was not even breathing hard. MacDonald had earned his strength; archeologists work harder than ditchdiggers.
The two sat crosslegged, looking west, watching the meteors.
They were twenty-eight hundred feet above sea level on the highest point of the strange island of Thera. The granite knob had been called many things by a dozen civilizations, and it had endured much. Now it was known as Mount Prophet Elias.
Dusk faded on the waters of the bay far below. The bay was circular, surrounded by cliffs a thousand feet high, the caldera of a volcanic explosion that destroyed two thirds of the island, destroyed the Minoan Empire, created the legends of Atlantis. Now a new black island, evil in appearance and barren, rose in the center of the bay. The Greeks called it the New Burnt Land, and the islanders knew that some day it too would explode, as Thera had exploded so many times before.
Fiery streaks reflected in the bay. Something burned blue-white overhead. In the west the golden glow faded, not to black, but to a strange curdled green-and-orange glow, a back drop for the meteors. Once again Phaethon drove the chariot of the sun…
The meteors came every few seconds! Ice chips struck atmosphere and burned in a flash. Snowballs streaked down, burning greenish-white. Earth was deep in the coma of Hamner-Brown.
"Funny hobby, for us," said Willis.
"Sky watching? I've always loved the sky," MacDonald said. "You don't see me digging in New York, do you? The desert places, where the air's clear, where men have watched the stars for ten thousand years, that's where you find old civilizations. But I've never seen the sky like this."
"I wonder what it looked like after you-know-what."
MacDonald shrugged in the near-dark. "Plato didn't describe it. But the Hittites said a stone god rose from the sea to challenge the sky. Maybe they saw the cloud. Or there are things in the Bible, you could take them as eyewitness accounts, but from a long way away. You wouldn't have wanted to be near when Thera went off."
Willis didn't answer, and small wonder. A great greenish light drew fire across the sky, moving up, lasting for seconds before it burst and died. Willis found himself looking east. His lips pursed in a soundless Oh. Then, "Mac! Turn around!"
MacDonald turned.
The curdled sky was rising like a curtain; you could see beneath the edge. The edge was perfectly straight, a few degrees above the horizon. Above was the green-and-orange glow of the comet's coma. Below, blackness in which stars glowed.
"The Earth's shadow," MacDonald said. "A shadow cast through the coma. I wish my wife had lived to see this. Just another year…"
A great light glared behind them. Willis turned. It sank slowly—too bright to see, blinding, drowning the background—Willis stared into it. God, what was it? Sinking… faded.
"I hope you hid your eyes," MacDonald said.
Willis saw only agony. He blinked; it made no difference. He said, "I think I'm blind." He reached out, patted rock, seeking the reassurance of a human hand.
Softly MacDonald said, "I don't think it matters."
Rage flared and died. That quickly, Willis knew what he meant. MacDonald's hands took his wrists and moved them around a rock. "Hug that tight. I'll tell you what I see."
"Right."
MacDonald's speech seemed hurried. "When the light went out I opened my eyes. For a moment I think I saw something like a violet searchlight beam going up, then it was gone. But it came from behind the horizon. We'll have some time."
"Thera's a bad luck island," Willis said. He could see nothing, not even darkness.
"Did you ever wonder why they still build here? Some of the houses are hundreds of years old. Eruptions every few centuries. But they always come back. For that matter, whattre we doing—Alex, I can see the tidal wave. It gets taller every second. I don't know if it'll reach this high or not. Brace yourself for the air shock wave, though."
"Ground shock first. I guess this is the end of Greek civilization."
"I suppose so. And a new Atlantis legend, if anyone lives to tell it. The curtain's still rising. Streamlines from the nucleus in the west, Earth's black shadow in the east, meteors everywhere…" MacDonald's voice trailed off.
"What?"
"I closed my eyes. But it was northeast! and huge!"
"Greg, who named Mount Prophet Elias? It's too bloody appropriate."
The ground shock ripped through and beneath Thera, through the magma channel that the sea bed had covered thirty-five hundred years before. Willis felt the rock wrench at his arms. Then Thera exploded. A shock wave of live steam laced with lava tore him away and killed him instantly. Seconds later the tsunami rolled across the raw orange wound.
Nobody would live to tell of the second Thera explosion.
The Brave Cowboy was adapted into the 1962 film Lonely Are the Brave, dir. David Miller. For the most part, I thought the movie was a halfway decent adaptation, as it draws a lot of scenes and quotes directly from the book. There's only one flaw, and unfortunately it's pretty fatal: it completely dropped the anarchist themes.
