Business

“Hi,” he said, “my name’s Billy Chang.”

  He extended his hand, which, stunned, I shook. He’d shaved off the Fu Manchu and now sported heavy horn-rimmed glasses for the complete duck geek look. Trang sat down to eat like all was normal. I stayed quiet. Best to wait and see what his game was.

  Archie dried his hands on a rag. “So, what’s a guy from upstate New York doing looking for ducks that almost never come here?”

  “You have no idea,” Trang said. His smile suggested a boyish enthusiasm. “It’s been an exciting time for me. I’ve pursued reported sightings for weeks. Followed flight patterns. Checked landmarks. Chased small clues here and there. I’m close now.”

  That must’ve been him in the desert amongst the high rocks. I pictured Simon Trang out there on his Raptor 700, scanning the horizon with field glasses. Watching. Waiting. Certain the others wouldn’t be far behind. If he’d found me, they would, too.

  “See anything?” I tried to sound casual.

  He shook his head. “Some signs, but nothing confirmed. I’ll keep looking. I’m not worried. It’s early days. This could be a real score if I’m right.”

  “And what makes you think you’ll see anything?” said Archie.

  “Call it a hunch,” Trang said with the confidence of someone who doesn’t rely on hunches. “I’ve studied this duck for a long time. Followed it right across the country. Mike’s been generous, letting me stake out his pond. Now, I have a decoy situation ready in the perfect habitat.”

  “So, a couple of days?” I said to gauge how much time was left.

  “Who knows?” said Trang. “Days. Weeks. I can wait. I’m retired. I took a room at the Apache Motel in town. I’m all set. I have all the time and money I want to travel around looking for rare birds.”

  “You alone?” Archie said. “Or is this something other bird people will jump on when they figure it out?”

  Trang nodded. “This duck’s special. There’s a bit of a competition going on for who’ll get him first.”

  “Rival duck watchers?” I flashed on Eagle Creek dressed like Elmer Fudd. Duck season. Rabbit season. “Sounds crazy.”

  Archie shrugged. He cleared Mike’s plate. “Can’t be worse than those hippies last summer looking for a portal to the parallel universe. Talk about rivalries.”

  Both men chuckled at a shared memory, but offered no further elaboration. Trang shook his head, too, amused. But we didn’t ask to hear the details. We weren’t talking about hippies now.

  “If those other guys show up,” Trang said, “it’s going to get plenty hot around here. This is a big deal for them.” He looked at me. “They play for keeps.”

  “For keeps?” I said.

  Trang laughed. “When a birder wants to be the first to claim a rare sighting like this, there’s nothing he won’t do. Sugar in gas tanks. Diversionary fires. Thugs have been hired to beat people up and scare competitors off. You name it.”

  “Jesus wept,” said Archie.

  “Oh, yes,” said Trang, “people have even been shot at.”

  Mike rose to his feet and moved toward the door.

  “I had no idea birding was competitive.” He bowed briefly. “I wish you all the best and hope you get what you came for. Go in peace.”

  Mike was out of time to talk about business that didn’t bring him closer to his higher purpose. Trang stood up and bowed in return.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m grateful for your permission to wait here.”

  Once Mike was gone, Archie was also keen to get on with his day. He said to me, “Time’s wasting. Got a grocery run. Mike says it’s good for you to tag along. You ready for a trip into town?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he stepped outside and called Albert to the porch.

  “I see they have no idea what brought you here,” said Trang when we were alone. “That’s good. No sense getting these people excited about our business. Go to town. See if you can flush them out. I’m sure they’re around. We can end this soon.”

  Before, nothing used to matter. I’d endure the untenable because everything always passed. I used to be drawn into stories that weren’t good for me. Stories that weren’t mine. Stories that made my life turbulent in an alien ebb and flow without commitment or responsibility. Aimless and disconnected, I’d been a sleepwalker for a long time. That dog outside in the sun was more engaged in his life. Until this moment. Now there was an urgent call to take control of my situation. The last thing that made sense was to go into town to flush out Lover Man or Eagle Creek. That reeked of suicide.

  “How’d you find me?” I said.

  Trang adjusted his hat over his ears. He said, “About six weeks ago, someone driving along the road saw a fire out in the desert. They called it in to the state troopers. No one was fussed, so it took a while to go out and have a look. You left some blood on a rock and some tracks on the ground. A report was filed. I picked up the scent. You should’ve called.”

  “I was sure I’d vanished.”

  “You did for a while.” He slung the binoculars around his neck. “Lucky for you, I got here first. Now, go show the world you’re alive. Once you’re in the open, it won’t take long. I’ll handle it from there. I got your back. Soon, you’ll be free from this business.”

  Trang, my guardian angel. I didn’t feel reassured. Were his transborder warriors poised behind the mountains, ready to swoop in with my well-being top of mind? Hard to picture. More likely, I was his bait. A bleating lamb tethered to a stake to draw out the jackals. More likely, I’d get killed in the cross-fire. On the other hand, there wasn’t much choice. His presence was the harbinger of a much bigger problem to come. He’d found me, and they would, too.

  The narrow highway lay crooked in red rock canyons, under ancient natural stone arches, past petrified pinnacles hundreds of feet above the scrub. A faded yellow centre line marked the route toward town and the snow-capped mountains beyond — the final barrier to the Pacific Ocean. Occasionally, a heavy tanker truck laden with flammable liquids bore down on us. Sometimes, an impatient car passed us at great speed. Mostly we were alone under the infinite blue sky.

  This visit to Moab was nothing to look forward to. The last time out, the world had presented a dangerous gauntlet where I’d been stalked, kicked, beaten, and left for dead. I feared this time wouldn’t be any different. Except in the details.

  We drove in silence for a while, Archie and me. Him wrapped up in the business of driving. Me absorbed in daydreams, while the world re-emerged over the horizon. Behind my closed eyes in the warmth of the morning sun, Marla’s face appeared. She’d been absent from my thoughts for weeks. With Akinwole’s departure, the car wreck, Eagle Creek on my tail, and my vanishing act into the isolated world of Mike and Archie, there just hadn’t been time for her. Now, as the world started to press in, I wondered how she was doing and who she was with. Not in a jealous way, like before, with her and Lover Man. More in a gentle way, like the way you’d miss someone you loved who’d died. Once we were in town, I’d decided I would call her. Tell her I was alive. Tell her I missed her. Find out if it was safe to come out of hiding. Sure, it was a bad idea. I planned to do it anyhow. Trang had my back. I’d go with that for now.

  My attention drifted to our shopping list, scratched in Mike’s spiral handwriting on a scrap of yellow paper. It confirmed the practical nature of our life on the ranch. An inventory of provisions needed to carry on. The longer I stared at it, the more it reminded me how far I still needed to go. How much needed to be done before I was safe on the other side. Before I could make a practical list of my own.

  The first order of business was a new radiator hose for the tractor. Not that it was broken. Mike required a new hose, he said, in case. I guess he’d had some vision of his tractor with a cracked hose. Who knows? Not every premonition offers up the Apocalypse.

  Fifteen pounds of galvanized nails seemed equally precautionary. Barns, houses, docks, and decks were forever coming apart and in need of hammering
back together. Judging by the 149 cedar planks and the 137 pounds of cement also called for, it looked like Mike had construction plans. No low-grade material for him. He planned to build on a solid foundation with quality materials. Could be a sauna or an observation deck by his duck pond so Trang wouldn’t have to lurk in the reeds.

  I pictured them together on the new deck, waiting for the arrival of the elusive Fulvous Whistling-Duck, which Trang knew would never come and which he’d never recognize even if it landed on his lap. And Mike, oblivious to Trang’s true purpose, blissful in dharma dreams, at one with the pond while Trang soaked up the sun till his prey showed up.

  “The wife was born in Moab,” said Archie, with no particular context, “and she’s buried there. We never had no kids. Ruthie was a good woman.”

  “Funny name,” I said, “Moab.” The word rolled around in my mouth like a pebble, my tongue feeling out its contours.

  “The bible says it’s the land of sinners,” Archie said. “A land of blood and sorrow. Called after the bastard son of Lot who was seduced in a cave by his daughters after they got kicked out of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  “What were people thinking, calling it that?”

  “There was talk of changing the name a couple of times. Never amounted to nothing.”

  Archie knew his Old Testament, chapter and verse. He lectured on for some time about the summit of Mount Nebo, where Moses had stood with the Lord in the land of Moab and viewed the plains. Look at the horizon, the Lord said to Moses. There it is, the promised land, on the other side of the River Jordan. What you’ve been searching for all this time. You’ll never get there, but your people will. While Moses had accepted God’s words, you can bet after forty years in the wilderness, this must’ve pissed him off a little. Dying in the land of whores’ sons, false idols, misery, and atrocity within a stone’s throw of Paradise after so many years wasn’t what he’d pictured for his end.

  Telephone poles flipped past the windshield. Strands of black wire rose and fell between each pole in lazy waves. The canyon walls and the desert were mute and static, as if we were driving on a moving belt made to create the illusion of motion against a vast and static landscape painting.

  “Them Mormons came through here in the 1800s,” Archie said. “They named everything from the bible. Zion. Jordan. Eden. Canaan. And Moab was a bad place for a while. All them outlaw fellows were here. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, the Blue Mountain Gang, Flat Nose Curry. But nowadays nothing much happens here. Tourists and hippies.”

  After all that talk of Moses and outlaws, Moab offered a small refuge amongst the canyons and the rocks in the middle of nowhere. More like a sleepy green patch than a wild outlaw hideaway. Main Street was a clean and orderly collection of restaurants and shops in low brick buildings. Pickup trucks and large-wheeled off-roaders roamed the streets. Old ladies gossiped with each other outside the bank.

  Archie stopped the truck in front of a psychedelic sign painted in Day-Glo colours: Mom’s. Flowers and ceramic pottery embedded with glass beads littered the front patio. The sign in the window said Open.

  “Go in and ask for Deer,” he said. “I got to do another errand. I’ll be back in ten minutes and then we’ll drive with her over to her place for our vegetables.”

  Inside, loud Asian pop music blared through four battered speakers hung from ceiling chains. An Asian girl behind the counter wiped glasses and lined them along a shelf. Long, shiny black hair framed her sharp cheekbones. Her white apron hid none of the delicate contours of her tiny body. Next to the cash register, a hand-printed sign with a little smiley face, tongue out, advertised Cambodian Spoken Here.

  “Deer?”

  “Who’s asking?” the girl said. She could’ve been fourteen, and she could’ve been forty.

  “I’m Paul. Archie said to tell you he’d be back in ten minutes to pick us up for the vegetable run.”

  She smiled. “Bet he’s longer.”

  While we waited, she made me a real cappuccino from an Italian machine.

  “Are we going to pull carrots?” I said.

  She worked the steamed milk with precision.

  “No,” she said, “my plot is out of town but I keep the produce at home. We’ll go to my place.”

  Her coffee was hot and full-bodied. After all this time without any dope or booze, a simple caffeine jolt felt spectacular. I sat on a stool at the counter and looked around the diner. My first time out in the world in weeks. Three shafts of yellow light refracted through a crack in the window splayed out over the floor. A row of seven mugs stood above the sink like an a cappella group humming “The Tennessee Waltz” while the dishwasher swish-washed through its rinse cycle under the counter. The world seemed a bit different since the accident.

  “Where’d they find you?” she said.

  “In the desert. I had an accident.”

  “Come to Moab to hide out?”

  “Sort of. No.” I needed a simple story that people wouldn’t question or find too interesting. I’d have to work on that. For now, I stirred the coffee, stared at the backs of my scarred hands, and tried to recall Marla’s number, the one she said to call when I got to California. Three, one, oh, something, something, seven, something, six …

  Archie showed up twenty minutes late. Deer locked up and the three of us squeezed into the cab of Archie’s truck. The gentle smell of sweet whisky seeped from his pores. A redness in his watery eyes further betrayed his new state. I said nothing. I didn’t care. Deer smelled of Sunlight soap. Her leg bounced against mine. She wore pink rubber boots with a thick felt lining.

  “Nice boots,” I said.

  “They’re my garden boots,” she said. “I hate cold feet.”

  Archie drove more or less straight to a small trailer park. About twenty trailers. Some better than others. A few chance trees shaded the grounds. Deer’s place was plain and clean. An American flag on a pole graced the door. An old Duster was parked at her neighbours’ with a handwritten For Sale sign in its window. Slicks. Pipes. A confederate flag airbrushed across the hood. A real rebel racer.

  “Come in,” she said. “This is going to take a while. I need to sort the vegetables. There might be something in the fridge if you want a drink. Help yourself.”

  Inside, Archie headed for the couch while I poked through her fridge for anything besides water or soy milk. A beer. A Coke. A juice. What the hell, I had a day pass. But the fridge offered nothing except a small plastic bottle of brackish goop. I held it to my nose. Something between chocolate and dog shit.

  “Don’t drink that,” she said. “It’ll take the top of your head off.”

  My scalp tingled.

  “Shit,” I said.

  She emptied out a burlap bag of vegetables on the counter. They rumbled, thudded, and rolled about in happy chaos. The dusty smell of dry earth filled the air.

  “No,” she said, “ayahuasca. It’s a hallucinogenic from Peru.”

  “I didn’t figure you for a dope head,” I said.

  “I’m not. And it’s not dope.” She sorted potatoes, carrots, and peas into separate piles. “It’s more like a magic potion. A gift from Mother Earth.”

  Archie snored in the next room.

  “So, you’re like the good witch.”

  She nodded. “It was a tip for delivering club sandwiches from the restaurant to some old guy in the Apache Motel last week. Vern, he said his name was. He was travelling with a dancer from Reno. He had a big cowboy hat and lots of facial surgery. Later, on TV, I saw he’d been arrested for insurance fraud. They said he faked his own death and ran off with millions. He was a nice man, Vern.” She said it like she was speaking about an old lady down the road. No judgement. No comment. Unaware how odd her story sounded.

  When all the vegetables were packed into cardboard boxes, she took the bottle of putrid liquid from the fridge and said we could go.

  “We’re taking that?”

  “No,” she said, “it goes to the restaurant. I’m going to
sell it to some hippies who’re camping out on the desert.”

  “How entrepreneurial.”

  “I should work harder,” she said. “Send more money home. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time.”

  “Sounds busy,” I said, poking Archie from his siesta.

  Deer continued from the kitchen. “I wish I could deal with the world on my own terms and not struggle so hard to make it work for me. I don’t care if I never find a man. I only look for some peace.”

  She came into the room with a woollen cap pulled over her ears. “Are you ready?”

  Back at the diner, she made us fried egg sandwiches. While she prepared the food, I ducked into the men’s to wash my hands. A pay phone on the wall jolted Marla’s number from my memory. I wondered if she’d be pleased to hear from me.

  I munched the fried egg sandwich in silence. Marla’s number rolled in my head like a mantra. I shouldn’t call her. It would open old wounds. It would probably alert Lover Man and Eagle Creek to my whereabouts. That’d make Trang happy. And likely get me killed. But Marla was the key. Marla could tell me if the coast was clear.

  Deer broke a twenty into coins after I said I needed to make a call. Archie watched, curious for a moment. I went to the back and fed the pay phone. A tinny bell rang like a slot machine for every quarter dropped. I held my breath. She still lurked under my skin. When she picked up, the world vanished. It was just the two of us again. Alone. Nothing else mattered. I’d conjured her back.

  “Marla?” I pictured her lips by the phone. I shivered. “Miss me?”

  “Where’d you go?” she said. “Everyone’s been looking for you.”

  “Sorry I didn’t call. I couldn’t. I had an accident.”

  “Yes. They found the car,” she said. “They said there were tracks and some blood. They think you might still be alive.”

  “They sent a killer after me. I got scared and ran.”

  “He’s not allowed to come home without you.”

  “You put me in a bad situation, Marla. Why are they doing this?”

  “They say you stole their dope.”

  “I didn’t do anything. I had an accident. It all burned up with the car.”