Frozen in Time

By France Griggs Sloat

 

He was a tense, short, stocky man with a crewcut and glasses propped on a long nose. His mind was talon sharp and jammed with scientific facts from his years wandering the globe, first in Antarctica and later in Greenland, taking seismographic readings as he went. But on this August day in 1975, Edward Bradley, S.J., was focused on the flying trip that lay ahead of him and a Jesuit cohort. It would be his chance to soar through the vastness of the Grand Canyon, take in the geological strata of this American icon and ponder his lot in life—Jesuit priest, physics professor, seismologist. Explorer. Not a bad life at all.

With a Winston dangling from his thin lips and his seat belt dangling by the door, Bradley eased his car from the parking lot of the Grand Canyon Village Motel he had shared with fellow professor William Topmoeller, S.J., and headed for their rendezvous with the pilot. At the same time, a woman in a station wagon towing a trailer was barreling down the road, heading north.

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