A Light in the Desert

by Anne Montgomery

  “Turtle head,” Billy said, glancing at the dangling gunk.

  Ray scraped the sole of his shoe with a rock. He spied the empty cans littering the ground. “Got any left?”

  “In the cooler,” Billy answered without lifting his head.

  The snap and fizz of a pop-top followed. Ray walked over to the oozing tortoise shell that was already being devoured by both crawling and flying insects and from which a noxious odor was emanating. He toed the mess over the side of the hill then sat on the ground at Billy’s feet. He scraped again at the flesh that remained in the indentations on the sole of his shoe.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “What?” Ray tossed the gummy rock away.

  “The train. I know I can do it. All the directions are right here. It’ll be just like bakin’ a cake.”

  “I didn’t know you could bake.”

  “For God’s sake, Ray. You really are as dumb as you look. I ain’t talkin’ about bakin’ anything. I’m talkin’ about derailing a train. It’s all right here!” He thumped the magazine in his lap.

  “What is?”

  “Check it out. I lifted it from Buck’s mailbox.” Billy tossed the magazine at Ray. “SP Trainline. It’s addressed to my granddaddy. Shitheads don’t even know he’s dead, I guess.”

  “This the same magazine that had the money in it?”

  “Yeah. Here.” Billy reached over, grabbed the magazine from Ray and flipped through the pages. “Right here. This article.” Billy jabbed his index finger into the page.

  Ray stared straight ahead.

  “Damn! I forgot. Little Ray-Ray can’t read.” Billy rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to tell you about it. Goes like this. There was a train wreck in 1939.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?”

  “Just shut up and listen. Somebody derailed a train near Harney, Nevada. Loosened a rail on a curve before a bridge. They even ran a wire to make sure the engineer never got a signal that the track was broken. Twenty-four people were killed.” Billy smiled.

  Ray was frightened by the look on his friend’s face, but said nothing.

  “The Feds still don’t know who did it. It’s a perfect crime. And if we can kill more people, our crime will be even better.”

  “But … but Billy …”

  “Oh, Ray. Just shut up and let me do the thinking.”

  “We don’t know how to derail no train.”

  “Sure we do,” Billy ripped the magazine from Ray’s hands. “It’s right here in black and white. Shows exactly how they did it. See. Look at the pictures. It even tells what tools they used. And, wouldn’t you know, my granddaddy left me everything we’ll need. I’ll be fucking famous.”

  Billy leaned back in the chair. “Get me a cold one, Ray.” He wished some of his friends back in L.A. were here. The crimes they were so proud of committing, the ones they pulled to join the Aryan Brotherhood, to gain respect in the gang, were so piddling compared to wrecking a fucking train.

  “First we need to pick just the right spot.”

  10

  RAMM SCREAMED. The dreams were back. Not that they had ever left him completely. Drugs muddied up the visions, blurred the edges, and dulled their brightness like the faded color on an old television. Medication made the nightmares almost bearable. But the pills were gone.

  Dog sniffed at the sweat-soaked sheets. Ramm eased himself from the bed. Any further attempt at sleep was futile, and, despite the fact that the sun would not rise for at least another hour, he stripped the sheets, dropping them to the floor, and headed for the shower.

  Ramm stepped into the steaming stream of water and scalded his back to release the tension in his aching muscles. He let the water beat on the ragged scar that ran the length of his thigh. He touched the old wound. But for the South Vietnamese lieutenant—a soldier Ramm had trained when he wore a red beret and held the title advisor somewhere in the wilderness on the Cambodian border—he would be dead. In fact, he had been listed as such, and his father notified that he had been Killed in Action.

  Lu had located Ramm at the bottom of a pile of mutilated American and South Vietnamese corpses: the VC had removed ears and testicles and other parts for trophies. Though the butchers passed him over, the bullets had severed the main artery in his thigh. The doctors and nurses who tended him in Saigon were amazed when he woke up four weeks later, stunned that he hadn’t bled to death in that pile of human meat. He asked to call home and found that his father had died seven days earlier, the grief of losing his son in the war too much for him to bear. Ramm had given instructions for his father’s burial and, having no one to go home to, re-upped for a second tour.

  Dressed in worn jeans and a soft, faded flannel shirt, Ramm put the kettle on the stove. He slumped into a hard-backed pine chair and stroked Dog’s head.

  Two hours later, the sun was bright on the eastern horizon. Ramm turned his truck down the dirt road leading to what was left of the Hotel Modesti. The structure had been built around the turn of the twentieth century and was situated next to a natural hot spring that once bubbled up at an almost constant 118 degrees. The spring, noted for a multitude of healing minerals, drew visitors from all over the country. Even President Teddy Roosevelt had come to take the waters. But in the late 1950s, drilling to provide irrigation for farmland in the lower Gila River Valley destroyed the spring and aquifer, and people stopped coming.

  The old hotel, desolate and boarded-up, crumbled as the desert slowly reclaimed the building. Ramm could see the structure in the distance, but as he approached the Agua Caliente Pioneer Cemetery, he made an unscheduled stop.

  He saw her sitting among the headstones. An odd tune drifted on the warm morning breeze. He did not understand the words, but the overall effect was light and rhythmic, more chant than song. The sound drifted in and out on the shifting wind that came from the planted fields below and rebounded from the black basalt mountain that rose across the road.

  Ramm stepped out of the truck and walked over to the cemetery’s low stone wall that was built from the rhyolite, quartz, and the dark basalt that littered the region. He lifted the bent wire that secured the gate, pushed the door open, and entered.

  The girl’s shiny black hair moved back and forth as she swayed with the song. Ramm walked slowly, not wanting to frighten her. He passed timeworn headstones: Geronimo Cruz 1856-1916, Lee R. Bailey 1894-1966, and Steven Duane Eddy 1952-1974. His foot crunched on the gravel.

  The girl whirled around.

  “Kelly,” Ramm said in a gentle voice.

  She didn’t answer and turned her face toward the barking.

  “No! Stay!” Ramm called, worried that a jump from the pickup’s window might reinjure the dog’s leg. But the animal ignored him and leaped from the truck. She jumped awkwardly over the stone wall and limped toward them. Ramm grabbed her just before she got to Kelly. “Bad girl!”

  Dog wagged her tail and whined, straining toward Kelly. “She won’t hurt you,” Ramm said, though Kelly didn’t seem the least bit afraid. “Would you like to meet her? Her name is Dog.”

  Kelly nodded and Ramm released his hold. Dog bounded over and licked the girl’s face. Kelly smoothed the fur on the dog’s rump and the animal sat down, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.

  Ramm focused on the smooth pink granite stone at Kelly’s feet. It read: Bryan Kelly Gone But Not Forgotten. The shape of a Purple Heart was etched into the stone.

  Kelly saw him looking at the grave marker. “My father,” she explained in her odd guttural tone. The dog was now lying with her head in Kelly’s lap.

  Ramm looked at Kelly, careful not to react to her mask-like expression, which no doubt made others stare and whisper and point and laugh.

  He sat on the ground. Only a droning horsefly and dry desert air passed between them. Ramm scanned the dilapidated cemetery, some grave markers flat and relatively new, like Bryan Kelly’s, others nothing more than crude metal crosses on which names and dates were cr
ookedly carved. His gaze fixed on a spot where sprigs of bright red bougainvillea had been placed. He noticed many more fresh blooms on several graves clustered closely together.

  “The flowers are for the babies,” she said. “The little ones who died a long time ago. When I come to see my father, I visit them, too.”

  Ramm could think of nothing to say and was surprised when Kelly continued the conversation.

  “My mother doesn’t want me anymore,” she said matter-of-factly, not a hint of self-pity in her voice. “Did your mother want you?”

  He thought for a moment. Then he lied. “She died when I was very young. I hardly remember her.”

  “And your father?”

  Ramm hesitated and turned away from the girl. “He was a preacher.”

  “What kind?”

  “Pentecostal. Like the Children.” Ramm quickly changed the subject. “How is school?”

  Kelly shook her head. The words rushed out. “I’ve never been to school. My mother says I’m too dumb. She says the other kids will just laugh at me, call me stupid, and make fun of my face, and the way I talk.” She struggled to her feet before he had a chance to respond. Ramm reached over to help, but she pushed herself up without his assistance. “I have to get back.”

  Ramm stood and watched her move slowly toward the gate. Then Kelly hesitated a moment, changed direction, and walked to the eastern wall of the cemetery where she stopped at the grave in the corner. Ramm joined her and they both stood looking down at the white marble headstone that marked the grave of Alexander Ramm.

  Several hours later, Ramm slowed to a stop, his breath coming in gasps, his heart pounding in protest. He had recently avoided any sustained aerobic exercise, and now paid the price. He leaned forward, hands on his thighs, face down at the trail that wound through desert brush and rocky outcroppings. The earthy odor of creosote—a strangely pleasing, moldy scent—wafted from a nearby ravine. The desert air was unusually free of dust, allowing Ramm to see the distant mountains in sharp outline. The vista was dotted with bright green patches, courtesy of regular irrigation, tiny amidst the parched browns of what had once been verdant lowlands bordering a seasonally mighty river.

  But the Gila was dead now, sickened by settlers whose wagon trains scored the land, allowing the water to run unabated into the desert, and by the domesticated animals that ate away the riverside foliage, causing erosion. Finally, the Gila was killed by the building of the Roosevelt and Coolidge Dams. With the water gone, the wildlife disappeared. The beaver, deer, waterfowl, and upland game birds all vanished. Only the heartiest and most adaptable living things survived in this land now.

  Ramm sipped some water, twisted the cap back on the bottle, and began the run back to the cabin. A tiny emerald hummingbird darted down the path distracting him. Though he had spent most of his youth in a series of small Midwestern towns, he had no trouble appreciating the desert’s spare beauty. A stately snow crane glided over one of the iridescent, irrigated fields. Attracted by the bird’s graceful flight, Ramm nearly stepped on the coiled reptile. The snake’s rattle startled him. He took an awkward step, lost his balance, but managed to right himself. The snake hissed in annoyance, tongue darting in and out. Ramm saw the bulge at the diamondback’s midsection. Some rodent was not having a good day. Easing his way around the creature, Ramm continued down the path.

  After a shower, he made a bowl of soup and settled at the kitchen table. Dog curled up at his feet, and he smiled at her. Maybe tonight, after the run, he would be able to sleep.

  Ramm took a spoonful of soup—homemade black bean and rice that Elect Sun insisted he take in thanks for the supplies. The Children had also given him several loaves of crusty brown bread made from a secret recipe known only to Elect Peter. Ramm sopped up the soup with several pieces of bread, then collected the plates and cleaned the kitchen.

  He fed Dog, went outside to check on Becky, and then sat in the overstuffed chair in the living room. The Bible he’d picked up at a second-hand shop in Casa Grande rested in his lap. Ramm ran his hand over the gold lettering on the cover and felt an energy around the book that both compelled and alarmed him. He forced himself not to think about what had happened in Jerusalem, the first time in his life he had been totally out of control, a frightening experience for someone renowned for possessing such cold, exacting skills. Could he lose himself again? Could just touching the book bring on the madness? The empty prescription bottle stared at him from the side table. Ramm opened the book. A crimson ribbon marked the words of Psalm 25.

  Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; According to your mercy remember me … Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins.

  Ramm searched the pages of the Bible until his eyes could no longer focus, then he closed the book, the solace he sought still unattained. In fact, the reverse had happened. His mind was so filled with words that salvation seemed impossible. How did so many others find the help they needed in this book, yet there seemed to be no words in the Bible for him?

  He wished he could speak with the burning boy. That was how he thought of him now. Strangely, this was less painful than remembering who the soldier had been before the fire. And the bullet that had mercifully ended his young life.

  Ramm closed the book with a simple prayer. Just let me sleep in peace.

  But Ramm’s petition went unanswered. Visions tormented him: the twisting path of the Via Dolorosa; prey caught in his riflescope; the Jerusalem insanity that had seemed so reasonable, so oddly peaceful. Then the face of the girl had appeared. He saw her everywhere he looked, the permanent sadness, a melancholy nothing could heal. She stared at him from paintings and statues, a woman glorified through the ages for her suffering and despair.

  11

  BIRDS CHIRPED OUTSIDE the open window, but the song they made was supplanted by noise emanating from the kitchen below. Kelly did not open her eyes at first. She had spent her entire life listening to her mother’s voice, the tone often etched with anger and disappointment. Poverty, what she perceived as abandonment by Bryan Kelly since he voluntarily joined the army, and the ultimate punishment of bearing an ugly child all conspired to torment Miranda. Though she worked hard to flaunt her own considerable beauty, when others saw Kelly, it detracted from her sense of self worth. And worse, whenever the deformed child became the center of attention, Miranda’s pulchritude was swept aside by her homely progeny.

  Kelly opened her eyes surprised to find she was not at home, though that was her mother’s voice she heard. A door banged below. Kelly rolled onto her side and pushed her body up. She glanced at the clock by the bedside. She’d slept ten hours, still she remained tired. The baby moved.

  Kelly slipped on a faded periwinkle sun dress that reached past her knees, then padded shoeless down the stairs and into the kitchen. Elect Sun sat alone at the table, a glass of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice sitting untouched before her. Kelly walked over and sat at the table, folded her hands neatly in her lap and waited for Miranda to reappear.

  “Where is my mother?” she asked after several minutes.

  Elect Sun sighed. “Gone. But she wanted me to tell you that she’ll be back, and that you should pack your things.”

  “Where are we going?” Kelly asked, surprised and saddened at the thought of leaving the Children. “I thought I was staying here.”

  “You’re going to Los Angeles. To stay with your mother’s sister Lilliana.” Elect Sun wrapped her leathered hands around the juice glass, but she didn’t drink.

  “Who?”

  “Your mother’s sister?”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “Your mother thinks it’s for the best.”

  “How far away is Los Angeles?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Elect Sun said. “I’ve never been there.”

  Kelly rose from the table and walked out the kitchen’s back door. She passed Elect Peter who was on his way in, but said nothing when he greeted her. She sat on the step
s and listened to her guardians talk.

  “There was nothing I could do,” Elect Peter lamented when he joined Elect Sun at the table. “The woman would not listen to reason. She has legal custody of the child. Kelly’s a minor. You know as well as I do that she wants Kelly away from her husband. As she was leaving, she yelled something about not wanting a brat for Eduardo to dote on, and that she was tired of being ignored in her own house.”

  “We have no recourse?”

  “I’m afraid not. Mrs. Garcia insists that Kelly leave Sunday night. She doesn’t want the baby born here or anywhere nearby.”

  “That’s just two days from now.” Elect Sun glanced at a calendar tacked to a strip of faded floral wallpaper. Above the dates, the suffering face of a blond Jesus, blood dripping from his crown of thorns, gazed back at her with sorrowful blue eyes. “How will she get to Los Angeles?”

  “The train. The Sunset Limited will pass through late Sunday night. Miranda plans to put her on it.”

  “Alone?”

  Elect Peter didn’t answer.

  Kelly sat on the steps of the abandoned Hotel Modesti, the bleached walls and boarded-up windows shielding ghosts of another time. Across the dirt road was an empty concrete pool built to hold the mineral water that once brought the afflicted to Agua Caliente. Crumbling stone huts dotted the road, constructed for those wishing some privacy as they took the waters searching for a cure.

  Kelly tossed a stone, but the pool was too far away, and the pebble clattered off between some rocks and a sprawling prickly pear. She liked to come to the old hotel and imagine that the healing water that had once bubbled out of the ground—and about which the Children had told her—could perform miracles. Like the water priests used on the heads of new babies, which she had been taught to dab on herself in the sign of the cross when her father was living, and she had been allowed to go to church. Back then she’d wanted to splash holy water on her face. If she had, maybe she would look normal now. But she never tried, and now there was no water here, either. There would be no miracle for her.