his car. He was wearing a baseball cap that said, "San
Francisco Giants." Oliver got out. The man approached and looked at him
closely. He was clean-shaven, darker than Oliver, thinner, and more
severe. They were the same height.

"You early," his father said.

"You, too." Oliver smiled.

"Come." He turned and motioned with his hand toward a set of wooden
steps that led to the rocks below. Oliver followed him to the steps and
down. Near the bottom, the steps were damp and slippery. A sign warned
them not to go farther: _Danger! Large Waves Come Without Warning!_ His
father ignored the sign and walked to the edge of a deep fissure in the
dark rock. It was twenty feet wide and thirty yards long, narrowing as
it approached a circular grotto eroded into the base of the cliff.

Farther out, a wave broke and raced up the fissure like a suicide
express. Water slammed between the rocky edges, wild and frothing,
seething, lurching, hissing, and sucking. Gradually, it receded.
Oliver's father pointed to the other side and walked to the end of the
fissure where they could look down into the round pool that had been
scoured into the rock. Shiny polished stones waited in its bottom for
the next wave.

His father continued around the pool and then along the opposite edge
on a path six inches wide. The rain had started again. Oliver followed
across a steep bank of short wet grass. The next train roared in, just
a few feet below them. He was terrified. If he slipped, there was
nothing to grab. Anyone who fell in would be torn apart in seconds;
there was no chance of surviving the furious water. There was a
malevolent feeling to the place. Bad things happened here.

His father walked steadily on. Oliver dropped to his hands and knees
and crawled to the end of the path, trying not to look to his left. He
scrambled down to a rocky shingle near the mouth of the fissure. His
father waited, watching him. Oliver stood up, swallowed, and wiped mud
off his hands. "Scary place," he said.

"You not scared there, you an idiot," his father said.

"Shit," Oliver said.

"What's the matter?"

"I just realized that we've got to go back the same way."

"How is your mother?"

"She's fine. She gave me your name--Oliver Muni Prescott."

"Ah," Muni said. "I am glad she is well. She was a beautiful woman.
Smart, too. Didn't stick around to marry me."

"She married Owl Prescott, an English professor. They had a girl,
Amanda. Owl died. The