Of Salt and Sand

by Barnes, Michael

  Tom had nothing but the clothes on his body—a T-shirt, jeans and a pair of tennis-shoes—to protect him from the baking sun. No supplies, no money, and no water. He looked like a half-baked ham in the searing heat when Loran came up on him.

  “You bent on being turned into jerky?” Loran shouted from his cab window as he pulled over to the side.

  When Tom glanced up at the burly, thick-necked man, he hesitated for only seconds before making the decision to take the lift. He knew it was a lucky break, what with the temperatures climbing into the triple digits, and him without water. But as much as he needed the lift, and the water, he didn’t need the company; nor the conversation which was sure to be attached. Tom wanted silence and sleep, and nothing else.

  “Loran Upton’s the name,” the man said, extending a large, leathery hand.

  “Ben,” returned Tom with an elusive nod. The name was fake of course, pulled from some distant memory—someone he had once known . . . or was it from a movie he had recently seen? He didn’t care. Tom gave the hand a brief shake, then settled back into the worn vinyl seat.

  “You broke down somewhere, Ben?”

  “No. Just decided to hitch a ride to Nevada.” Here we go, thought Tom. Chitchat. I knew it was coming!

  “Nevada,” Loran repeated, curiously.

  Change the subject! Tom told himself. “You wouldn’t have some water I could buy?” Tom managed, dryly. He didn’t have a dime, but figured the guy wouldn’t refuse him a drink if he had one.

  “Buy?” Loran balked. “Certainly not.” He shifted the rig into a higher gear and checked his mirrors. “You don’t sell a glass of water to anyone. There’s a small cooler of water right behind the seat there,” he motioned. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” Tom found a stained glass cup which he promptly filled, gulped, then filled again, and then one more time.

  “I figured you were thirsty,” Loran chuckled pleasantly. He was glad he’d filled the cooler at the last stop.

  Tom had scarcely sat down his empty cup when the chitchat started up again.

  “Where did you say you were from?” Loran asked in an bad off-the-cuff attempt.

  Tom knew the question was not intentionally prying, but it caused his stomach to twitch all the same. “I didn’t say,” he heard himself speak, rather sharply, then instantly regretted it.

  Loran just nodded and seemed to absorb the remark without thought.

  “I mean—I”, Tom sputtered back. “I don’t think I said.” He swallowed, then made one last mental deliberation. “I’m from Evanston,” he finally managed, feeling very awkward.

  “Oh. I see.”

  And that was the end of the chitchat. Loran had caught the hint.

  Tom knew he had been rude. He didn’t want the barrage of questions, yet he didn’t want to cause suspicion either. He opted to avert his gaze to the window and let the back of his head do the talking.

  Loren didn’t suspect anything. The kid was a teenager. Mood-swings were a part of the whole adolescent package. He got that. He figured he’d just resist the itch to chat and give the kid his privacy. So that’s what he did. Not a word . . . for nearly an hour.

  Tom did his best to melt into his seat. He kept his head down and nearly hugged the passenger door. But he soon found that the odd silence was more unsettling than even conversation would have been. He had acted badly, and his conscience began to dig at him. This briskly-looking trucker had been nice enough to pick him up, and he had responded to the man’s kindness by being a jerk. And besides, Tom was starting to feel very tired. He wanted to sleep, but was afraid to nod off without knowing more about where they were heading. It was time to breech the obstinate wall he had created.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “I think the heat just got to me. I didn’t even tell you thanks for picking me up.”

  Loran gave out a snort and smiled. “You don’t need to apologize, kid. I have a habit of jaw-flapping . . . hold the record in fact. Sometimes I forget that chatting goes both directions.”

  Tom smiled and instantly felt better. He leaned back and let loose a genuine, yet exaggerated, yawn.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep. We’re a good two-hours from Wendover yet. That should give you time for a little shut-eye. You’ll feel better after that.” Loran reached and pushed an eight-track into the dash. “I’ll just put on some relaxing music—a collection of some of my favorite country tunes.” He grinned wide under a thick, greying mustache. “You’ll enjoy it.”

  Tom nodded. Country, he thought. Perhaps death by heatstroke wasn’t so bad? “Sounds good,” he lied. Then he turned his back to the man and leaned into the seat. Now that he knew where they were headed, he would try and sleep.

  At first, sleep seemed to allude him, his mind racing with the events of the last twenty-four hours. But soon, with the hypnotic sound of the motor and the gentle sway of the road, Tom relinquished to his physical exhaustion, and fell much deeper into slumber than he ever thought he would amid unfamiliar surroundings.

  --

  The next thing Tom knew, he felt the truck’s center of gravity shift and heard the air-brakes being applied. His eyes shot open just in time to see a Rest Area 1 Mile sign fly past his window. He had underestimated how tired he was, and had slept longer than intended. He quickly sat up.

  “I need to make a quick stop,” came Loran’s voice at the kid’s first movements. “All that water I’ve been drinking has to go somewhere.” The turn-signal was already ticking and the truck had slowed and moved into the far right lane for the exit.

  Tom nodded drowsily and glanced at his watch. He had only been asleep about an hour—not as long as he thought. Still in Utah, he noted, nervously. Not good.

  The rig heaved itself into an open spot and then halted with a hiss of air. There were other carriers parked nearby in the trucking area, and lines of cars pushed up at the curb. Loren killed the thrumming tap of the motor and rolled down his window.

  Tom rolled his window down just a bit and glanced out. The outside air cracked with heat and the asphalt smelled of oil. There were several small buildings on one end of the circle—restrooms obviously—and a few covered picnic tables set out in small sections of watered grass (the only green in the whole place) with fiberglass canopies to provide shade. A little stretch-your-legs trail wrapped around the outer perimeter and circled back through the withered wild-grass and sagebrush. Several families were taking advantage of the short trail before continuing their long drive through the remainder of the desert terrain.

  Tom noted, with an air of humor, an old couple in the pet area coaxing their dog to relieve itself. They were stomping, pointing and demanding, “Pee! I know you need to. Now pee!”

  On the other side of the grassy blotch, a young family sat at one of the shaded tables enjoying an early lunch; and up near the restrooms stood an overweight man staring down at the soda machine as if expelling a beverage telepathically.

  “This is the last rest stop until Wendover,” informed Loran. “You might want to take advantage of it.” He pushed open his door and stepped down onto the pavement.

  “I’m good,” Tom called back. “I’ll just wait here . . . if that’s alright.”

  “Fine with me.” Loran gave his door a firm shove.

  Tom watched as the man lumbered, rather stiffly, from the parking area to the sidewalk leading to the restrooms. He seemed like a nice enough guy, Tom thought, and figured by the time they reached Wendover, he’d know a heck-of-a lot more about Loran Upton, whether he wanted to or not. He sighed and rolled down his window the rest of the way. He leaned his arm out and rested his chin on it. There was an old information display under an overhang next to the sidewalk, just off the curb. It was festooned in tourists pamphlets, outdated maps—mostly of the Utah-Nevada border towns—and an aged bulletin with geographic information about the local topography and its desert flora. Next to it was a Points of Interest notice framed under a weathered glass cover. Tom eyed the
display carefully. Between the sun-bleached lettering, the vertical streaks of bird feces and the occasional mud-wasp nest, he was able to make out some of the information. He spied the word, historical, then spotted more of the larger text which spelled out the name Falling Rock Mine. The mine’s location was clearly marked by a broken line of distance from a You Are Here spot on the pale map. According to the map’s legend it was about eight miles south—just up the Oquirrh Mountain canyon. As Tom eyed the old board, something triggered in his memory, and he peered carefully at the words, Falling Rock Mine. They menaced a childhood memory, and then he suddenly remembered: the old janitor at the adoption agency—Ajax, they had called him. The old keeper had once told Tom a story about how his own father had been killed while working at a mine called The Falling Rock when he was just a boy. Tom remembered the story clearly because the man’s father had in fact been killed by a falling rock while working at the mine, a cruel irony which Tom had noted even as a child.

  The old custodian chatted up his tall tales with far more enthusiasm than he ever did in doing his chores, but he had been a gentle man, one of the few who had been truly kind to Tom and the other orphans. Tom recalled, with a touch of unpleasantness, how he had locked himself in one of the bathroom stalls and cried for nearly an hour when the old man died.

  A sudden movement severed Tom’s reverie. He hadn’t even noticed the two State Police cars pulling into the rest area, but he certainly noticed the officers now as they moved first toward the man at the soda-machine, then to the couple with the dog. They exchanged conversation briefly with the old pair, putting expressions of concern and disgust on their already aged and furrowed features. Then, one of the officers pulled a folded paper from a back pocket and held it open at the couple’s faces. Tom knew instantly what it was; his sickening stomach and rapid heartrate galvanized what is mind told him.

  The pamphlet was certain to be a sketched rendition of one of three suspects from a robbery the previous night at a 7-11 in Evanston, Wyoming. He knew this because he had been the driver. And now, as he fought to keep his stomach at bay, there was little doubt in Tom’s mind that it was his face sketched on the paper; the face shown on the morning news; and yes, the face which had clearly reflected back at him from the bright neon-lit window at the 7-11 that previous night, as he sat in an idling 65’ Mustang, waiting for his two friends who had run in to get some cigarettes. Heck, he’d even waved and tossed a cool gaze at a hot chick as she sensuously hipped past. The woman hadn’t paid him any attention at the time, but odds were she’d already ID’d him as the teen sitting in the driver’s seat. Yes, thanks to his buddies, Pauly and Dan, Tom’s was the face everyone was looking for.

  Tom hadn’t known the brothers long, having met up with them at a local party the night before the robbery. The two locals already had a bad reputation for trouble when Tom met them, but he knew nothing of their past. All Tom knew was that the mouthy pair had decided to head out to Las Vegas, and had offered to take him with them. It was the first real chance Tom had had at getting out of that psycho foster home he’d been placed in. Vegas was an alluring destination for a trio of young men who wanted to disappear amid the glamor, night life, and money-making opportunities of a big city. Once there, the three of them could falsify their age and land some easy jobs—it seemed a failsafe plan. But there was evidently more to the brother’s plan than Tom knew about.

  Pauly and Dan had lifted the Mustang from a car dealer just hours before they had picked him up. Once they had the wheels, they needed money for gas, food and a motel. When the two brothers came bolting out of the 7-11, yanking the nylon stockings off their heads, Tom had assumed it was some kind of crazy prank. But when they jumped into the car and yelled, drive! drive!, he knew something was terribly wrong. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that he had been played—big-time! But when he tried to stop the car, Pauly, the oldest of the two brothers, had pulled a gun on him: a Colt 45, which Pauly shoved in his face. I said drive! So drive Tom did.

  Tom wanted to run from his foster family, yes, but not like this. Not from the pan and into this fire. Theft, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon? This kind of adventure he could do without! He had tried to talk the brothers down; tried to convince them to stop and let him out, but all he got was more angry threats.

  . . . you were the driver! Pauly had scoffed from behind the loaded gun. You aided and abetted, bud! . . . your face wasn’t covered. Your pretty-boy face is the one they’ll be looking for!

  Tom shivered as he thought about those terrible words. After Pauly’s threat, he had shut his mouth and drove, unaware that the brothers weren’t quite finished yet. Their lovely 65’ Mustang had been seen. It had to go. They would have to abandon it and grab another vehicle before sunup.

  They hadn’t driven very far—about 45 minutes south of Evanston—when Tom was ordered to pull off the Coalville, Utah exit and into another convenience store parking lot. That had been about 3:20 A.M. They waited for a while, canvassing the area closely. Pauly and Dan actually did more arguing than anything else . . . debating on whether to hit this store, or risk driving to the next town.

  Once again, Tom tried his best at talking the brothers down. He tried to convince them to let him go and not use more violence. But as before, he was threatened with his life. It seemed that Tom was, yet again, to be the unwitting accomplice. But just as Pauly and Dan decided to go for it, guns in hand, a white Ford pickup pulled into the lot and parked right up to the front curb. A middle-aged, overweight man shimmied out and hurried into the store, his large mug in hand . . . and he left his truck running. The trusting local had probably followed that same routine every morning for years, and had no qualms about leaving his truck idling just long enough to hurry in for a refill on coffee. It was a decision he would regret.

  Minutes later, the white ford was off and heading south down I-80 toward Nevada at best speed. Tom sat sandwiched between the two brothers. He hadn’t said a word since the truck screeched out of the parking lot. And with Pauly’s Colt 45 still sitting on his leg, Tom didn’t feel too inclined to start any sort of conversation.

  They had only driven about thirty minutes when Dan let out a whoo-hoo! Looky what I found! The younger brother had just spied a case of beer sitting on the back seat. Pauly joined in the hooting with a ya-hoo! Pass me one of those babies!

  Ironically, it would be the beer which gave Tom his chance to escape.

  Pauly guzzled one after another for the next hour. Dan drank nearly as much, but was careful not to outdrink his older sibling. Either way, it wasn’t long until both fugitives started to show signs of intoxication. And soon—as every drinker knows—what goes in, must come out, especially with beer.

  “I got’ta go, Pauly!” Dan whined. “C’mon. Stop the truck. I got’ta go! I’m gunna piss in my pants!”

  “Go in one of the empty cans! I ain’t stopp’in!”

  “C’mon, Pauly!” his brother kept on.

  Now Pauly wasn’t the type to give in. So when he swore, and pulled the pickup sharply off the road, squealing to an abrupt stop on the shoulder, it was because he had to go too. Both brothers had downed so much beer, they were not only empty-headed, but ready to blow a bladder!

  Tom suddenly saw his opportunity. He waited until both brothers were in the middle of doing their business, then, like a scared cat in a dog-pack, he bolted like a shot. His feet hit the rocks and into the darkness he ran.

  Pauly whirled and tried to zip-up in time to get off a shot with his pistol, but Tom had already disappeared into the darkened landscape.

  Tom ran until he thought he’d cough up a lung. He finally stopped to catch his breath, but only when he felt certain that he hadn’t been followed—the brothers were so drunk they couldn’t have run ten feet in a straight line anyhow. After that, it didn’t take long for him to spot a rocky crevice to hide under until dawn.

  It was during those long dark hours, with nothing but the sound of the distant highway echo
ing in the stillness, that Tom realized how much trouble he was really in. Oh, he had escaped from the crazy brothers, yes, but the quicksand he found himself in had already swallowed him, right up to his neck . . . and there was no one to pull him free. With no family—and no one else, really—to help him, Tom would get convicted and spend years in jail. He would take the fall for Pauly and Dan. Tom realized for the first time, how truly alone he really was in the universe. Whatever path came to him now, would be of his own volition. There was no one to throw him a lifeline. No one to trust; no one to care. He would have to be his own liberator, if liberation was to come at all.

  How sobering had been that moment under that vast spray of stars . . . sobering, lonely and so very frightening.

  That had been last night. But now, as Tom watched the police snake through the Rest Area like lions in tall grass, his eager resolve began to wane. And then things got worse. He suddenly spotted Loran exiting the restroom. It was just a matter of time now. As soon as the cops approached Loran, it would all be over.