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CHAPTER THREE

  "Clarity"

  Curt couldn't believe his eyes. How did she get there? They were miles from nowhere in a desolate wilderness yet there she stood by the side of the road as if waiting for a bus. He looked at Ronnie.

  "I see her," Ronnie said, quickly closing the ashtray to hide the joint. As if an old woman standing in the desert had any interest. He felt anxious, foolish and absurd all at once. He laughed at himself.

  "Maybe she's lost," Curt said.

  "How did she get out here?" No car. No bike. No horse. She stood next to the road with her wizened face turned expectantly toward them.

  "Maybe we should ignore her," Curt said.

  "No, man. We can't just leave her standing there. She might need help."

  "We are not heading back into town," Curt said with finality.

  "No, man. Let's just ask her if she's all right. She looks like she's waiting for us."

  Curt stopped the microbus by the side of the road. The pale cloud of dust they'd been trailing slowly overwhelmed them pouring in through the windows and covering them with grit. The old woman stood on the right, or south side of the road. She was about five two, wore a shapeless potato sack dress and her head was covered in a beaded shawl. Ronnie didn't see how she could stand it.

  Up close it was obvious she was Native American from her coppery skin and bulbous nose. She could have been anywhere from fifty to a hundred.

  "Are you all right, ma'am?" Ronnie said through the open window.

  She came close and peered in through the window, standing on her toes to glance in the back. She had mis-matched eyes; one brown, one silver. Like a Malamute.

  "Have you seen my son?" she said.

  Ronnie and Curt exchanged a glance.

  "No ma'am," Ronnie said. "You're the first person we've seen since leaving Last Chance this morning. How did you get out here? Did you come with your son?"

  "I warned him. I warned him about that woman."

  "How did you get out here, ma'am? Did somebody drop you off?"

  "He is very tall. His father was a shaman too."

  The old woman was obviously touched.

  "Give her one of the canteens," Curt said. "We've got plenty."

  Ronnie leaned back and snagged one of the sweating canteens, covered in canvas. He held it out through the window. "Here take this. Are you sure you're all right?"

  The old woman took the canteen and looped it over her shoulder. She shrugged, turned and walked into the blazing heat.

  The boys stared.

  "Maybe we should go after her," Ronnie said.

  "And do what? Forcibly restrain her? I don't think that's a good idea. Listen. If she's still here when we come back we'll take her into town with us."

  They watched for a few minutes as she receded into the sandy landscape. Curt put the VW in gear and they headed east toward the mountains.

  Two hours later they found themselves running parallel to a gash in the earth when the road forked. The left turn laid a beeline for the horizon. The right veered toward the chasm.

  "Take the right," Ronnie said.

  "You sure?"

  "Take it."

  Five minutes later they came to the chasm and a precarious-looking wooden bridge that spanned a ten foot gap to a free-standing butte. And from there, another ten-foot bridge to undulating desert. They got out of the bus.

  The chasm was twenty feet deep at that point but they could see where it dropped lower up ahead.

  "I don't know, man," Curt said.

  Ronnie walked out on the bridge. "Feels solid." He jumped up and down in the middle causing pebbles, gravel and dust to gyrate. "It's good. Let's take it."

  The bridge creaked ominously as they traversed it. Ronnie relit the joint and passed it to Curt. The land descended toward a series of buttes and crevices in the distance. They drove down a switchbacked slope and their ears popped. It felt as if they were below sea level. A half hour later they spotted an odd rock formation off to their right. Ronnie got out the binocs. "Looks like a decent spot to lay up."

  The microbus jounced and jittered over the rock and sand. The formation, which looked like a mushroom, was further than it first appeared and it took them forty-five minutes to finally pull up beneath the overhang of a sandstone ledge that jutted from the earth like a natural stonehenge. It was a little after four.

  The boys got out to stretch their legs and walk around the odd formation. It was bigger than it looked, with several jagged routes up and into the crown. Ball cap pulled low over his forehead Ronnie boosted himself up onto a boulder to climb inside the crown.

  "Careful of rattlers, hoss," Curt reminded him.

  Ronnie hesitated. "It's hot and sunny. Hopefully they're all sleeping."

  "No man. They lay up at night. They like the heat."

  Ronnie wore over the ankle hiking boots. They wouldn't do much good if a rattler lunged for the calf or thigh and he paused before each step. There were numerous cubby holes in the rock, dark places where snakes could hole up. He wished he'd boned up more on rattlesnakes.

  "Wait a minute," Curt said from the ground. "I'll get the snakebite kit." He returned to the bus and located the plastic, lozenge-shaped capsule. Carrying a backpack and canteen he followed Ronnie into the crown. It only took a few minutes to reach the summit, an uneven confluence of two rounded boulders leaning together and surrounded by jagged shards of granite and sandstone that formed a natural parapet.

  They scanned their surroundings. No snakes. Curt reached into the backpack and removed an aluminum foil bindle. He unwrapped it revealing two beige capsules.

  "Ready to launch?"

  Ronnie reached out and took one of the caps. "Let's do it."

  The boys swallowed the acid. Ronnie took out the Zeiss and leaned against the waist-high stone, slowly examining the horizon. Curt sat in the shade cast by a broad shingle, took a fat doobie from his shirt pocket and lit it with a Zippo emblazoned with the Grateful Dead symbol.

  Soon they were mellow. They waited for the acid to kick in. Ronnie took long swigs from his canteen, got up again and resumed his watch. Afternoon sun lit the desert like the Radio City stage, the crown of rocks casting a long shadow to the east. Pale cumulus hung on the horizon glowing gold in the lowering sun. It was October and the desert would grow cold at night but they had plenty of sleeping bags in the bus.

  Curt's gaze focused in on a half inch crack in a roundish boulder and he saw a large black spider with gold markings industriously wrapping a beetle in silk. He knew the acid had kicked in. Here was life in all its horror and glory. He reached for his backpack and withdrew his sketch pad and a mechanical pencil.

  They grooved in a timeless space. A tendril of chill insinuated itself up Curt's shirt like the breath of a waking ice giant.

  "Curt."

  "What?"

  "Curt."

  "What?!"

  "Come look at this, man! Look at this fucking butte, man! It looks like that drawing you made!"

  It took Curt a couple seconds to remember how to move as he shifted first to one hip, then to his feet. He joined Ronnie at the rail looking east at the distant violet mountains.

  "What?"

  Ronnie handed him the Zeiss. "Five after twelve, man. Doesn't that look just like that butte you drew?"

  Curt took the glasses. His wavering grip found the rock at his waist, the sand, the horizon. The butte escaped him.

  "Can't see jack shit, man."

  "Here," Ronnie said, taking the binocs and laying them on a flat shelf, a giant chipped tooth. He crouched and carefully adjusted the binocs. "All right. Don't touch 'em. Just carefully get down here and look?"

  Curt did as he was told. As usual, he saw nothing at first but he kept looking and the flickering trick mirror coalesced--a minor distortion revealing the tiny, quavering chimney-like rock of his dreams.

  "Whoah."

  "Yeah. Let me see that sketch."

  "I gave it to the bartender."

  Ronnie di
d a double-take. "What?"

  "Yeah. She asked for it. I didn't have tip money anyway."

  A dark blue crept behind the mountains indicating the night to come.

  "That's where we're going, man," Ronnie said.

  "Bullshit, Ronnie. Look at these canyons."

  Ronnie turned toward him with feverish eyes. "Don't you see? There's a reason you drew that place! It's too similar to be a coincidence. Someone or something is telling you to go there!"

  "Oh. Wow," Curt said as revelation dawned. He stood and stretched. His up thrust arms topped the long shadow of the crown like horns. "The only place we're going is back to the bus. Aren't scorpions nocturnal?"

  "We been out here all afternoon and ain't seen diddly. I say we build a fire and camp up here, man."

  All they had was a small camp stove. It would take hours to gather enough scrub brush from the desert floor to build a fire that would last minutes. There was nothing resembling a branch much less a log.

  "No fire. It would make the stars more difficult to see."

  Ronnie nodded. "That's right, man."

  Curt seemed to have modified his earlier policy. As the sun settled into the west they climbed down to the bus, retrieved their sleeping pads and bags and returned to the crown. They set the camp stove up in the center of the crown on a flat spot but now the acid raced through their veins and neither was hungry.

  As twilight gave way to night they lay back with their heads on their rolled up bags and gazed at the celestial display. Back in college, they may as well have been in a tent when the stars came out. Light and air pollution had dimmed the heavens to a faint backgrounds glimmer.

  Out here, miles from the ubiquitous neon and spotlights, the stars spanned the heavens to infinity. Millions of them. The whole Milky Way, a carpet of diamonds. Far to the east a meteor fell to earth leaving a blazing trail.

  "Wow," Ronnie said.

  "Yeah," Curt said. "Clarity."

  Ronnie looked down. A pale scorpion hustled across his ankle. It tickled.

  Far out, he thought.

  Eventually they fell asleep.

  ***

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Sand Storm"

  The sun woke them. The sun and the wind. Because they were surrounded by abutments, it was past ten before the sun struck Curt in the face. He groaned, wiped a hand across his eyes and reached for his sunglasses. The wind was out of the east playing the crown like a flute. The clefts emitted dissonance as the wind ripped through. Sand flew.

  Curt splashed water in his face from the canteen, took a healthy swig and shook Ronnie awake.

  "Wha--?"

  "Get up. Wind's picking up."

  Curt stood and looked over the stones to the east. A roiling brown wall concealed the mountains. It filled the sky until it tapered off in a pale yellow.

  "Fuck," Curt said. "Sand storm coming."

  "What?" Ronnie said getting to his knees and unsteadily to his feet. He looked over the wall and turned away at once blinking and rubbing his face. "Ow."

  "Yeah. It's a sand storm! We'd better get to the bus."

  They gathered their things, rolling the sleeping bags sloppily, hanging backpacks and canteens around their necks, and scrambled down the pipe to the desert floor on the west side of the crown where they were shielded from the brunt of the wind. The bus was at six, shielded by the outward leaning sandstone shelf.

  Ronnie paused to piss. "Fuck, man I'm still tripping."

  Curt stared at the rock. Tiny whorls of gray/green lichen rotated in spiral nebulae. They walked around the base, drew open the side door and threw in their stuff. They got in the van. Ronnie was first to pop the red and white Igloo and pull out a slab of cheddar wrapped in cellophane. Curt found a loaf of California sourdough they'd bought two days ago and tore off a chunk. Next they hit the jerky.

  Twenty minutes later the boys belched, satisfied. The wind had picked up and even here behind the crown pinpricks of sand peppered the bus. The push-out vents howled when the wind hit the right resonance. A fine grit entered through the open windows but even in the shade it was hot and neither was eager to close the windows.

  Curt grabbed a handful of Arby's napkins and opened his door. "Roll up a doobie. I gotta take a dump."

  He let himself out and looked for a place out of the wind. Underneath the shelf was best. He duck-walked back and looked around for a pair of rocks on which to crouch, eyes glossing over a peculiar pattern in the stone. Then back.

  Curt couldn't believe it. There were pictographs under the stone. They were hard to make out due to age and shade but when he got close they were plain as day. A cluster of conquistadors in their distinctive peaked caps riding horses. The lead conquistador held a curved saber overhead. Two feet away crouched behind a peculiar rock formation stood an Indian firing an arrow. The Indian seemed like a giant compared to the tiny Spaniards but perhaps that was due to perspective. Yet the Spaniards were drawn as if moving right to left in the middle distance--not coming toward the Indian.

  Perhaps it was symbolic.

  Midway between them, a wagon wheel.

  Curt found a different place then returned to the bus.

  He opened the door. "Hey man! Get your camera and follow me. You've got to see this."

  Ronnie looked up from his reefer works spread on a shopper, carefully finished the doobie and set it in the ashtray. He grabbed the Nikon.

  "What's up?"

  Curt led him under the ledge and showed him the pictographs.

  "Wow," Ronnie said focusing. He took pictures at a low exposure to take advantage of the limited light. "Surprised they’re not defaced or something."

  "Yeah, well you know with the wind around here man, the sand could have covered them up."

  "It's gonna cover us up if we don't get back in the bus."

  The desert plowed through them. Sand began to accumulate beneath the ledge due to back draft. They got in the bus. Ronnie pulled the doobie from the ashtray and lit up. Soon they were mellow.

  "What about that old woman, man?" Ronnie said. "I hope she isn't out in this."

  "For all we know she lives nearby. Walked there."

  "Lives nearby where? There's nothing on the map."

  "Ronnie. You're not going to obsess about that old woman, are you? Look outside. It's fucking opaque."

  Visibility was maybe ten feet. The desert was moving west. A choking cloud of dust enveloped the crown leaving a bubble of slightly dense air in its lee. Sand flew into the bus through the open windows and at last the boys cranked them closed leaving only the rear flaps open. Their gear was covered in grit.

  "Fuck! What if we get covered with a fucking dune or something?" Ronnie said.

  "We got shovels, dude. Remember? For digging up shards and shit?"

  Ronnie thought about Terry, his svelte blond girlfriend. She'd wanted him to go to Playa del Carmen this summer. He closed his eyes and pictured turquoise pools beneath swaying palm trees, surf rolling in off the Caribbean. He'd never been to Mexico. They would have been a mere day trip from the pyramids and Tulum, the fabled Mayan outpost on the sea.

  The bus began to rock on its springs.

  "Man that wind is strooong!" Curt said. "Grab me one of those sodas, wouldja?"

  Ronnie turned in his seat and stretched for the cooler. A three inch scorpion the color of discarded skin dropped on his wrist.

  "YAHHH!" Ronnie jerked his back so hard it struck the windshield. Curt twisted in his seat, a spear of anxiety rising from his shades.

  "What?"

  "A fucking scorpion just dropped on my hand!"

  Curt half-turned and put one knee on the seat. "What? Where?"

  Fearfully they surveyed the jumble of rubble that filled the bus' interior. No way would they know if the scorpion were inside. The junk could be hiding a dozen scorpions.

  "Fuck," Curt said. "What do we do?"

  "We gotta get it outta here, man, or we can't stay in here."

  "Aren't they supposed to
be frightened of people? Maybe it'll just hide and leave us alone."

  Ronnie looked up hopefully. A scorpion crawled from between the folds of a sleeping bag and climbed to the top raising its tail in victory. Sir Edmund Hillary. This one was orange.

  "That's not the same scorpion," Ronnie said.

  "Fuck."

  "Yeah."

  Now there was no question. They had to clear the bus of scorpions or they were fucked.

  "Get that Off! out of the glove compartment," Curt said.

  Ronnie retrieved the orange and blue aerosol can. He read the directions. It said nothing about scorpions. It wasn't a poison--it was a repellant. But he couldn't think of a better idea.

  Curt picked up a pair of two foot barbecue prongs. "Okay. I'll lift the shit with these and shake it out. You blast it with the Off!"

  Ronnie aimed the aerosol at the red scorp, still posing on its hill, and let fly. The scorpion scrambled off the mound, tried to make the seams but Ronnie was right there dousing it. It struggled feebly against the side door. Ronnie opened the door and used his foot to shove the arachnid out. He followed it out. It would be easier to avoid them out here than in there.

  Curt followed. They faced the interior. Curt used the barbecue tongs to drag his sleeping bag from the bus. It was light--made of nylon and filled with down. He whisked it away.

  "Fuck it. We'll just leave 'em."

  He extracted Ronnie's and did likewise. The interior was still filled with fast food wrappers, magazines, maps, zip-locs, backpacks, shoes and other bric-brac but at least they could clear a space to stand.

  Something heavy hit the windshield with a crack. Both boys heads swiveled in unison.

  "What the fuck was that?" Ronnie said.

  Curt got down on his haunches and peered beneath the bus. Sand had built up around the perimeter and he couldn't make anything out.

  Another report, this one unmistakable.

  "That's a fucking rock!" Curt declared.

  "Come on, man. No way the wind is hurling rocks."

  Curt looked at Ronnie with an expression close to panic. "There's somebody out there," he said so softly his voice was drowned by the wind.

  Ronnie caught the vibe. They leaped back into the bus and shut the door. Curt went for his White Stag bowie. Ronnie picked up the tire iron, which floated around the back with everything else.