Santaroga Barrier

1 The sun went down as the five-year-old Ford camper-pickup truck ground over the pass and started down the long grade into Santaroga Valley. A crescent-shaped turn-off had been leveled beside the first highway curve. Gilbert Dasein pulled his truck onto the gravel, stopped at a white barrier fence and looked down into the valley whose secrets he had come to expose. Two men already had died on this project, Dasein reminded himself. Accidents.Naturalaccidents. What was down there in that bowl of shadows inhabited by random lights? Was there an accident waiting for him? Dasein's back ached after the long drive up from Berkeley. He shut off the motor, stretched. A burning odor of hot oil Permeated the cab. The union of truckbed and camper emitted Creakings and poppings. The valley stretching out below him looked somehow different from what Dasein had expected. The sky around it was a ring of luminous blue full of sunset glow that spilled over into an upper belt of trees and rocks. There was a sense of quiet about the place, of an island sheltered from storms. What did I expect the place to be? Dasein wondered. He decided all the maps he'd studied, all the reports on Santaroga he'd read, had led him to believe he knew the valley. But maps were not the land. Reports weren't people. Dasein glanced at his wristwatch: almost seven. He felt reluctant to continue. Far off to the left across the valley, strops of green light glowed among trees. That was the area labeled "green-houses" on the map. A castellated block of milky white on an out-cropping down to his right he identified as the Jaspers Cheese Cooperative. The yellow gleam of windows and moving lights Around it spoke of busy activity. Dasein grew aware of insect sounds in the darkness around him, the swoop-humming of air through night-hawk' wings and, away in the distance, the mournful baying of hounds. The voice of the pack appeared to come from beyond the Co-op. He swallowed, thinking that the yellow windows suddenly were like baleful eyes peering into the valley' darker depths. Dasein shook his head, smiled. That was no way to think. Unprofessional. All the ominous nonsense muttered about Santaroga had to be put aside. A scientific investigation could not operate in that atmosphere. He turned on the cab's done light, took his briefcase from the seat beside him. Gold lettering on the brown leather identified it: "Gilbert Dasein-Department of Psychology-University of California-Berkeley.". In a battered folder from the case he began writing: "Arrived Santaroga Valley approximately 6:45 p.m. Setting is that of a prosperous farm community...". Presently, he put case and folder aside. Prosperous farm community, he thought. How could he know it was prosperous? No-prosperity wasn't what he saw. That was something he knew from the reports. The real valley in front of him now conveyed a sense of waiting, of quietness punctuated by occasional tinklings of cowbells. He imagined husbands and wives down there after a day of work. What did they discuss now in their waiting darkness? What did Jenny Sorge discuss with her husband-provided she had a husband? It seemed impossible she'd still be single-lovely, nubile Jenny. It was more than a year since they'd last seen each other at the University. Dasein sighed. No escaping thoughts of Jenny-not here in Santaroga. Jenny contained part of Santaroga's mystery. She Was an element of the Santaroga Barrier and a prime subject For his present investigation. Again, Dasein sighed. He wasn't fooling himself. He knew why he'd accepted this project. It wasn't the munificent sum those chain stores were paying the university for this study, norHerbert, Frank is the author of 'Santaroga Barrier' with ISBN 9780765342515 and ISBN 0765342510.