Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  The Cadillac’s passenger door opened and Karl von Rimmelkopf balanced on the running board. He shouted, but he could not be heard above the engine’s roar. He waved his hand dramatically, as if motioning to Meinshausen to steer closer to the P9. Whenever the Cadillac would close in, I’d jerk the steering wheel leftward and veer in the opposite direction. It was having the desired effect, alarming von Rimmelkopf each time.

  I fixed my gaze ahead. By my own reckoning, we would reach the Salt Flats in a few minutes. Before that, it was rough earth, with bumps growing bigger, sending both vehicles leaping up and down, sparking our own mini Dust Bowl. I heard—and felt—a thump. Von Rimmelkopf had leapt onto the P9’s left wing. I began swerving—left and right and left again—but his hands clung on to the edges like a vise.

  He leapt over to the dome, landing against the hard glass surface. He wasted no time in digging his fingers under the handle, seizing it with his grip. He unholstered his pistol. I resumed weaving, hoping my sudden movements would throw him off. No such luck. “Pull over!” he screamed. “Or I shoot!”

  Next I peered into the bad end of his Luger.

  “OK!” I shouted. “I’m stopping! Don’t shoot!”

  I stepped on the brake and the car slowed to a halt. Von Rimmelkopf jerked his gun in little motions to coax me out. Meantime, the Cadillac had U-turned and was heading this way. I pressed the canopy upward and moved as if I were about to climb out. Out of sight, my right hand probed the floor, stopping at the oxygen tank. I unstrapped it.

  “Get out! Now! Schneller!”

  Poor guy never the saw the oxygen tank coming. The bottom cracked his jaw, making a terrific metallic “pang.” Blood spurted. He closed his eyes, spat a tooth, and fired his gun into the sky. I nailed him a second time with the tank for good measure. He toppled off the side of the car. A shocked Meinshausen, now getting out of the Cadillac, slipped back behind the steering wheel. Meantime, I pulled the canopy down, locked it in place, and resumed driving. I held the steering wheel with my left hand while I strapped the oxygen tank back in its place with the other.

  The speedometer climbed to 45, then 50. The Cadillac caught up to my right. Meinshausen flung open the driver’s side door, steered close to the P9, then rushed out onto the running board and dove onto the right wing. The driverless Cadillac slowed and swerved off into a dust cloud. Meinshausen inchwormed to the car’s rear. I craned my neck to watch him.

  He lifted a hinged cover halfway between the cockpit and the car’s rear. He now had access to the gigantic engine. His upper body dipped into the opening and he commenced fiddling. I swerved more—right, left, right, left—but he held on. I even slammed on the brakes, which worked on Voss, but not on Meinshausen.

  The car now sped over the smooth-surfaced Salt Flats, leaving the bumpy terrain behind. All of my swerving and braking and assorted efforts to buck the stocky Nazi off the back of the car were failing. I feared he’d soon figure out a way to manually shut down the engine. I scanned the blinking, buzzing mosaic in front of me, looking for something that might help me out of this predicament.

  A green button with a lightning bolt in its center looked promising. Above it, it said: DB 603-MW 50 METHANOL/WASSEREINSPRITZUNG. All I have to lose is my life, I thought. I pressed the button.

  The whole car began to vibrate. The engine fell silent. The speedometer needle dropped. 55 … 50 … 45 … 40 … 35 … Tiny lights blinked everywhere. A warning signal near the oxygen mask flashed on and off. Sensing something was about to happen, I strapped it over my face, covering my nose and mouth.

  In that instant, another engine began to power up, this one far louder than its predecessor. Meinshausen hurriedly slammed the panel shut and jumped off the back of the moving vehicle in a mad panic. He got off in the nick of time.

  The car blasted forward, a rocket on wheels, in a sudden burst of velocity. The force thrust me deep into my seat. The speedometer needle shot above 100, then 150, then 200. Endless stretches of crystal flats passed under me in seconds. A free-falling sensation twisted my stomach.

  Careening through space at speeds I never thought possible, I gripped the steering wheel tightly. At those speeds, my equilibrium unraveled. I didn’t know if I was upside down, right side up, sideways, or backward. The urge to vomit into that oxygen mask hit me. I held back.

  In the midst of all of that turmoil, a feeling of inner peace settled over me. I no longer feared death. I gazed out at that white surface, and the distant peaks, and marveled at the beauty around me. My sense of balance was restored. In fact, I had never been so calm in my entire life.

  The speedometer neared 300. Closing my eyes, I inhaled fresh oxygen. I’m not sure if what happened next was a dream or if it was real. Opening my eyes, I found myself passing through clouds. Coming out the other end, blue sky permeated my view. I lost track of time. Was I experiencing this for one second or one hour? I could not be sure. My father’s face took shape in the glass canopy above me. His presence seemed so strong and real. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to say all of the things I wished I could have told him in that hospital room before death took him away.

  But his likeness began to fade. I barely had time to say “I love you.”

  All at once, the sensation of leaving the ground surged through me, filling my stomach with butterflies. The P9 was airborne. I tipped my head back, looking directly up into the dome at crystal flats that had once been below me. I realized I was upside down. Falling through space, the vehicle landed with a deafening crash, and I lost all consciousness.

  Thirty-four

  I was hanging upside down in a cocoon of shattered glass and twisted steel. Outside, a storm brought heavy rain. I unclipped the safety harness and plunged, falling face first against a bed of salt crystals and glass shards. Little orange flames crackled all around me, and stinking petrol fumes filled the air. In my mind, I was taken back to when I pulled Clive Underhill out of the fiery wreckage of his Desert Lightning. Only this time, there was nobody to help extract me from the P9.

  I located a narrow opening. I barely fit through it, like a gopher squeezing out of a hole he had no business trying to get through. I wiggled my way outside into pouring rain. Rolling over on my back, I surveyed the damage. The P9 had jumped off of an embankment, flipped over on its back, and was now a smashed-up shadow of its former glory. Lightning flashed across the slate-gray sky as I struggled to my feet, gripping the swastika-emblazoned vehicle to maintain my balance.

  The rain fell unusually hard for Utah’s West Desert. I’d never experienced a monsoon, but this is what I imagined they were like. I headed away from the P9, unsure of where I was going. I walked with a limp, resulting from a sharp pain in my foot. I stumbled repeatedly. At one point, I fell to my knees and vomited. I ran my hands over my banged-up face. Blood coated my fingertips.

  Through the curtain of rain, I squinted. Up ahead in the distance stood the ruins of one of the Jericho Salt Works buildings, a sprawling, forlorn hulk on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake. I set off in that direction, practically swimming, and soaked to the marrow. Years ago, Jericho enjoyed a top spot as one of the largest salt producers in the world. In its heyday, back in the 1920s, the company owned a railway line and train, and would ship workers in from nearby Grantsville. For those small-town boys, landing a job at Jericho meant you’d made it big in the world.

  Those days were gone. Now tucked away in this corner of nowhere, the main building—five stories of rust-splotched corrugated walls and shattered windows—had only its reflection in the briny lake to keep it company. Two towering salt silos dominated the factory’s southern side, and below them ran a twin set of railroad tracks still boasting lines of phantom cars coupled together that hadn’t been used since the start of the decade.

  Pyramids of salt, a hundred feet high, surrounded the refinery. Located between the building and the lake were huge diked ponds where salt used to be evaporated. They fed conveyor belts that had been silent for ages and ha
d eroded over time, and the white landscape was dotted with abandoned tractors with salt shovels or elevator scoops that sat decaying like mechanical dinosaurs.

  I once read that, at its height, Jericho manufactured 1,200 tons of salt per week. It went out all across America and around the world. But hard times took a toll on the company, and mounting pressure from its chief competitors, namely Morton and Royal Crystal, forced it to close its doors sometime around 1930 or 1931.

  I limped to a chain-link fence enclosing the building. A sign read PRIVATE PROPERTY. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. There was no getting through that padlock and chain sealing the gate shut. I walked along the length of the grounds until I found what I sought: a remote stretch of fence that had been torn wide enough to accommodate a large automobile. Multiple tire tracks crisscrossed the muddy flat surrounding the plant. I passed through the opening of the fence and headed toward the imposing structure. I stepped onto train tracks and entered the building through the railroad car bay. It was a relief to finally be out of the rain. Despite being wet, wounded, and disoriented, I somehow kept my wits about me. The floor of the plant was elevated above the tracks, like a subway station. I scaled to the top on an iron ladder anchored to the wall. My feet clinked on the rungs until I reached the platform, giving me my first view of a vast room filled with steel girder columns and rows of windows on all sides. Outside, lightning webbed across the sky, and thunder’s distant rumble followed.

  I knew I was taking a chance, coming here unarmed, with no idea of what to expect. I’d behaved rashly back at the refrigerated warehouse in Wendover. Still, this was my only lead. I was desperate, and I hadn’t thought this through clearly. My top priority was to find Booker. I gave a silent prayer that I’d find him alive, yet in my heart I feared he was dead, or missing.

  I ventured deeper into the ruins. Water dripped in spots. It was hard to see, but just enough dim gray light filtered in through the giant windows, enabling me to see dormant kiln driers, pumps, long tables, industrial weighing scales, packaging machines, conveyor belts, broken glass, scattered lumber, and twisted piles of metal and rot and who knows what else. Every step I took, the floor crunched and cracked under my shoe soles. Lightning burst in the skies and I couldn’t even count to ten in my mind before the thunder arrived.

  I came up behind the darkened shape of a man tied down to a wooden chair, his head drooping low into his chest. I rushed over and squatted in front of him and began untying the ropes around his ankles.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” I said.

  A sharp pain ripped through my shoulder, accompanied by a startling gunshot. I fell over on the wet concrete ground. Blood drained out of a hole in me. A moment later, a flashlight beam left me momentarily blinded, and I squinted in the darkness to see three figures closing in on me. Unarmed, surrounded, and possibly mortally wounded, I feared for sure I was a dead man.

  “Lift him up.”

  Two separate sets of hands—big, strong, thick—scooped me up by the armpits and lifted me, scarecrow-like, to my feet. Before I could gain my balance, a tightly clenched fist plowed deep into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I tried to double over, but the men on either side of me held me upright. I glanced at them. To my right was Grady Hedgepeth, lean and Roman-nosed with a cleft chin and balding on the top of his head, and to my left was Earl Starkey, crew cut, double chinned, flab everywhere. Starkey grinned, visibly pleased to be here, while Hedgepeth remained shifty-eyed and nervous. They had once been patrolmen and partners at the SLCPD. I knew not to look at either man for too long. Instead I stared blankly ahead of me, trying hard not to let the terror I felt inside show.

  Once more, a flashlight beam stabbed my eyes. I blinked my way through the brightness. While still holding his revolver, Dooley Metzger reached over and poked his index finger in the bullet hole. Searing pain racked my shoulder, accompanied by the gory sound of his finger wiggling against blood and muscle and bone. It took me several seconds to realize that the blood-curdling scream I heard was actually coming from me.

  “Damn,” he said, pulling away his hand with the gun in it. “You ought to have that looked at.”

  His goons burst into laughter as I writhed in agony. Every inch of me burned with pain and dizziness, and the world around me seemed to be spinning like a top. I wanted nothing more than to fall over, curl into the fetal position, and throw up on the ground next to me. For a brief moment, I began to wonder whether I would survive this ordeal. By now, his flashlight bulb had burned its way into my retina. I closed my eyes and a bright dot vibrated in the blackness.

  “How did you know about this place?” asked Metzger.

  When I failed to answer, Starkey and Hedgepeth gave me a violent shake.

  “The man asked you a question,” said Hedgepeth.

  “Tell him, ya bastard,” growled Starkey.

  “You used to be a security guard here,” I said. “Says so in your personnel file.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “I guessed. It’s a perfect hiding spot. It’s secluded, not in use anymore. Who’d think to look here?”

  “You did,” said Metzger. “I take it you’re looking for him.”

  He cast the beam of light on a sight so grisly it shocked me to the depths of my soul: the mutilated remains of Winston Booker, tied down to a chair. Much of his skin and his maroon outfit had been thoroughly shredded, and thousands—maybe millions—of sparkling salt diamonds were embedded in the bloody red and pink subcutaneous layers of his corpse.

  “I hated to do it,” said Metzger. “He sobbed like a baby when I tied his ankles to the rear bumper of my car. He put up one hell of a fight. You can see his claw marks on the back of the car. Poor kid. I liked him. He was polite. Knew his place. Kept to it. He’d repeat—word for word—everything I ordered him to say to the police. I used him as a bargaining chip to spook the Germans. Thanks to him, I’m fifty G’s richer. Yes sir, it’s a real shame I had to kill him.”

  “Why did you?” I asked.

  He grinned for a second. I did not see his gun coming at me. The first hit was the most painful, the most jarring, and I heard something crack. I was dazed. Each blow struck my head hard, and sent waves of raw agonizing hurt through my skull and out to the rest of me. My legs collapsed. The two men on either side of me had to hold me up to prevent me from crumpling. The beating lasted less than a minute, yet it seemed to go on forever. Unrelenting. Savage. Blood ran down my forehead. It collected in my eyes. It spread across my cheeks and dripped off the tip of my nose. I drifted in and out of consciousness. I had never been beaten so savagely. I’m not sure I had anything left to vomit up.

  “Because I enjoy doing things like that,” Metzger said, laughing.

  I ended up on the ground, numb all over, with a trio of men kicking me all over my body. My legs and arms and ribs and face took a pounding. A heel stomped my solar plexus, making air shoot violently out of my lungs, and I tasted the warm, iron flavor of blood in my mouth. Another hard-toed shoe kicked me in the crotch. I gazed up at steel rafters in the shadows of the high ceiling. Metzger crouched close by and smacked me in the mouth with the butt of his gun, cutting my lip, and blood dripped into my mouth. With his free hand, he gripped my collar and raised my head off of the ground. He flashed a grin, but there was no missing the rage in his eyes, radiating like a pair of hot lighthouse lamps. He jerked his head at his goons as he let go of my collar and let my head smack the ground.

  Starkey picked me up by my biceps and Hedgepeth grabbed my ankles. They lifted my body off the ground and carried me across a loading platform to a waiting hopper car. They dropped me at the edge of the loading dock, so I was level with the top of the open, empty storage car. I peered down into the massive, rust-brown rectangular container to see a thin layer of salt at the bottom. When his thugs parted ways, Metzger walked over to me and squatted, dipping his head so his mouth was a few inches away from my ear.

  “Remember when we met and
I said I admired your father?”

  I could not reply. I felt too weak to say yes.

  “I lied. He was a fool, too blind to see there was a race war going on. But I knew it. Hell, I knew all along the niggers and mexes and kikes had it in for all God-fearing whites, waiting in line to slit our throats. That’s why every chance I got, I’d bring one of those inferior pieces of shit out here and put him outta his fuckin’ miseries. I had Earl and Grady here write police reports to make ’em look like they were resisting arrest. Wasn’t much of a lie, looking back. If half those curs would’ve had the chance, they’d a knocked me off first. The way I look at it, it was self-defense, killing ’em the way I did. Pure and simple.”

  Earl Starkey chimed in: “Newton Perry says there’s gonna be a revolution! Newton Perry says the day will come when all the race traitors will be wiped clean off the face of the earth. Newton Perry says…”

  Metzger turned his firearm on Starkey and pulled the trigger. A little dark hole burst inward on Starkey’s forehead. He toppled off the edge of the platform, and when his body hit the bottom of the hopper car, a loud, metallic “bung” rang out, echoing across the factory floor.

  “He never had an original idea of his own,” said Metzger.

  Hedgepeth’s eyes widened and he grew panicky. “Why did you do that?”

  “Sorry, amigo. There isn’t any room for you on this ride.”

  “No! Dooley! I swear to God, you’ll never hear from me—”

  Metzger squeezed the trigger three more times. Muzzle flashes went off like lightning. All three bullets entered Hedgepeth’s body. I looked away from the carnage, but I heard him tip over the edge, and land in the hopper next to his fellow dead partner.

  Metzger aimed his gun at me. The next pair of gunshots sounded distant. Metzger jerked twice, took two steps forward and fired his gun. A dirt geyser exploded inches away from my thigh. Metzger swallowed hard. He moved up to the edge of the platform, his revolver pointed downward. He plummeted over the edge, landing with the same steely thud.