A deafening bang jolted the car. The steering wheel wrenched out of Reinhardt’s hands and the vehicle swerved into the cut side of the road with enough force to deploy the airbag, which exploded against his face in a blinding white flash. He sat in the seat, stunned for a moment, his ears ringing, surrounded by the smell of something burning. He gathered himself together and opened the car door. The fiberglass bumper was splintered, and the engine ticked with dissipating heat. He bent down to get a look under the car and saw a lacerated rock and a line of reddish fluid streaming from the transmission into the dirt.
He looked around at his surroundings, then up into the sky, which was filling with clouds. In the midst of it, a tiny jet airplane flew diagonally across the blue vault. He noticed that there were no vultures, then quickly realized that there would be no vultures yet. In that tumble of thinking, queasiness came first, then panic, then tears. After it had all passed, he said to himself, “Listen, Dr. Kupfer. You need a plan, not hysterics.” He stood, brushed himself off, and started looking through the car for anything useful.
___
The Ashdowns were parked on County Road 16 a few hundred feet into the sagebrush in a place called Antelope Flats with the truck windows open, the borrowed backhoe off the trailer, and Bruce Cluff’s fifth map unrolled on the hood and held down with a pair of toolbox magnets. The other two corners flapped in the wind. A scant number of junipers and creosote were scattered about in this tight dish of land. A low palisade of dark basalt hemmed them in on the east and gave way to a box canyon that dropped fifteen abrupt feet to a concavity with a natural dirt ramp that led back to the level of the road. Beyond that area, farther to the north, was a single hill rising out of the chaparral. The county road rose up to the base of the hill and followed its contour and continued farther into the monument. They were sixty-five miles from the state highway. Another thirty-five miles of dirt road lay between them and the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
Byron sat inside his uncle’s backhoe at the bottom of the draw with the black stone wall of the box canyon wrapped around him on one side and a steep dirt slope on the other. The steel boom curled behind the machine like the segmented tail of a massive yellow scorpion. Lonnie stood next to him holding the roll cage while Byron worked the loader down into the rocky ground. The bucket came up, quivered, then dropped, and the monstrous tines bit into the dirt. As Byron cranked the control levers, the front rode up slightly, the pitch of the pumps rising. The loader bucket sank into the ground, and the machine spasmed, throwing Lonnie off. He screamed and rolled out of the way, then jumped up and tried to flap his arms to get Byron’s attention, but Byron kept digging.
“Hey,” Lonnie shouted. “Hey, Byron!” He waved his hands until Byron turned off the machine.
“What?” Byron said, spitting through the open side of the cab.
“Aren’t the pots and whatever gonna be worth more if they’re, like, you know, all in one piece?”
“You and me and a couple shovels ain’t gonna cut it. We’ll make it up in volume,” Byron said.
Lonnie shook his head. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“Let me remind you that we’re at this particular crossroads because of your problem-solving skills, not mine. Get out of the way. The clock is running.”
“I feel it too, you know. This guy isn’t going to just lay off and let us go.”
“He’ll lose interest.”
“I’m starting to lose interest,” Lonnie said. “I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
“Then you’re free to go. But I’m tired of eating scraps with the dogs.”
“I know. You’ve said that before.”
Byron turned on the machine, lifted the bucket, pulled back, swiveled around, and dumped its contents at Lonnie’s feet. A large white thing tumbled out of the dark cascade of dirt and rocks. When it came to rest, Lonnie saw two eye sockets and a row of small flat teeth.
He looked up to see if his brother had noticed, but Byron was already turning the machine around. He drove ahead a dozen feet and dug again. Lonnie reached down and pulled the skull out of the dirt, considering it. His first thought was surprise that the map was right when it said this spot had human remains, then he thought maybe there wasn’t just one person here. Lonnie turned the skull around and saw, behind the eye, a radiating web of cracks. His eyes unfocused, and for a moment, he thought he might pass out. “We can’t do this,” he said, but the sound of his voice was swallowed up by the backhoe. He dug into the loose earth with his hands, which was still damp from the recent rain, and kicked up the curved tines of a rib cage. As he scanned the mound, he saw the crusted dome and serpentine cracks of a second skull, which he pulled out and set alongside the first. He wanted to get these people away from Byron and the random tires of the backhoe. Lonnie dropped to his knees and started digging. He quickly found the parallel bones of a forearm. At the end of it was a curled fist held together by the clumped dirt.
He stood, and when Byron swung the bucket back around, Lonnie lifted up the bones, and when Byron saw them, he shut down the machine. “What’s that?” he shouted.
Lonnie pointed to the mound of dirt. “There’s people in here. You have to stop.”
Byron smiled and whooped and climbed down from the machine. “Gimme that,” he said, snatching the bone away from his brother. Lonnie scrambled, picking up the two skulls, as Byron tossed the arm bones aside. “You know what those mean?” Byron said.
“This is a graveyard?”
“It means we hit the jackpot.”
“I don’t think that’s what it means, Byron. This is the opposite of a jackpot.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“Well, disaster comes to mind,” Lonnie said. “Maybe a curse.” He showed Byron the fractured skull. He wanted his brother to see there was something going on here that was more important than money. He thought about his own mother buried in Kanab, and he knew his brother wouldn’t even consider digging in that cemetery. “These are somebody’s ancestors, Byron. Please, let’s just go,” he said.
His brother was unmoved. “Oh, shut up and get the shovels,” Byron said, and he headed back to the machine.
___
As Sophia drove back to town, she tried to listen to her book, but she was too mad about what happened on the trip to follow the story. She tried music, but even the angry songs were angry in the wrong way, so she switched to silence and let herself stew. Yes, Paul lied to her, but that was not exactly right; he kept information back—he was playing a role. It was supposed to be a trip for them—that’s what it was, right?—but it turned out to be a disguise. A ruse—that was the word she wanted. He obviously had no plans to tell her about anything until he was caught—the double-dipping bastard.
When the road straightened, she checked the signal on her phone: NO SERVICE.
Over the summer, she had discovered some of the places on the monument with coverage: on top of Mt. Logan and west of the Hurricane Cliffs. In Antelope Flats, a little ways from here, you could get a sliver of signal if you were high enough, not enough for data, but you could make a call or send a text. She weighed it all out, and given the work she was doing, she decided to stop at Antelope Flats and call Bryce Canyon and see if Dalinda could walk her through the procedure for something like this. Then she could focus on what to say instead of how to say it.
As she came around the corner and dropped down the hill, she saw the turquoise Ford again parked off the road in a sparse area of juniper. There was a trailer there, too. She slowed, and when she didn’t see anybody, she pulled in behind the truck and stopped to give the place a closer look. Beyond the truck, a yellow backhoe arm flashed into view, then disappeared. She got out. This time she was going to at least get the license plate number.
On the hood of the Ford was the same hand-drawn map she’d seen last week. She groaned and scanned the map more carefully to see if she could figure out what they were doing. Swallow Valley was on it, as well
as a spot nestled in a canyon, marked with a small square surrounding an X. Next to it was the note 2 sticks dynamite set here in 1981. Access controlled. She recognized the handwriting from the blue book Paul had with him, and she thought of everything Paul told her about Cluff. Her pulse jumped as the dots connected. She pulled out her phone, checked again for a signal. When she failed to get one, she snapped a picture of the license plate and the map, ran back to her truck, and hopped into the bed. Still no signal, so she stepped up, stood above the cab, and picked up 1X, which was enough to connect. But from that height, she could see the two guys moving earth with the backhoe, which meant they could see her.
She hopped down and sprinted to their truck, plucking the map from the hood, tearing it where the magnets held it down. On her way back to her own truck, a voice called out, “Hey! We seen you a couple days ago.” It was the taller one. He looked exhausted, and he carried a human skull carefully in each hand. It looked like he’d been crying.
“Disturbing a burial site is a federal offense,” she shouted, standing tall, to make herself seem larger, because she had been trained in mountain lion safety but not for anything like this.
Lonnie looked down at the skulls in his hands. “I tried to stop him,” he said, then he lifted his face.
Sophia took out her phone and pointed it at him. “I’m filming this. My name is Sophia Shepard, and this man is—”
“Won’t do any good if you can’t send it. No reception out here.”
She looked down and still had the 1X. “I’m good. We can use it in court,” she said, then continued narrating the scene. When she did, Lonnie raised both hands and the skulls over his head. She looked around for something she could use to defend herself, but she had a phone in one hand and a map in the other, so she jumped down and reached for her truck’s door, thinking she’d lock herself in. Then a light flashed on the scrubby hill north of them, and an instant later Lonnie’s face burst into a kaleidoscope of blood and sunlight, which fanned into a mist as he dropped to his knees and fell forward into the dirt. The skulls leapt free of his grasp, rolled for a few inches, then came to a stop.
The surrounding space collapsed around Sophia, and she could no longer hear the straining of the backhoe’s engine. One second later, a staggered line of holes burst across the center of her windshield, each impact followed immediately by a burst of scintillating glass and the dull thud of the bullet burying itself in the back of her vehicle. Sophia dove to the ground and covered her head. A series of metallic pings came in triplets. During a pause she spotted the dead man through the tires of her truck and saw his back lurch as a bullet struck him across the shoulder. After a few seconds, another string of bullets rang across the fender of the other truck.
Her father, who had been a Marine in Iraq during Desert Storm, had taught her combat tactical breathing to help her with anxiety attacks in middle school. He said it’s how you can get in control of your parasympathetic nervous system. She did not know what that was, but they were the right words to show he wasn’t making any of it up. He told her this is how she can pull her head back in the game when she loses it. Breathe in, hold, exhale, repeat. After three cycles, she could feel her vision sharpen. Another few rounds and her thoughts started making sense. She could hear the backhoe again.
She turned on her phone and checked that she still had a connection. She thought about calling 911, realized their response time would be two hours or more, then with one hand she typed a hurried text to Paul: IM BEING SHOT AT ROAD 16 ENVELOPE FLATS. The second she sent it, she saw the autocorrect error and fixed it with a second text: ANTELOPE. The delivery message appeared and another round of pok-pok-pok rang out somewhere in the sheet metal above. She crouched.
While the backhoe growled and groaned, Sophia lay on the ground with the map next to her and the phone cradled in both hands, waiting for “delivered” to change to “read.” She tried to process what was happening. It seemed like some kind of drug deal in a movie going bad. Was this random or planned? Was it a turf war? Was one of these guys double-crossing the others? Two against one? Pottery was worth money, but not that much. Her thoughts stopped sprinting when another flash popped on the hill. She tensed, anticipating the incoming bullets, until she realized the glint wasn’t shots at all, but it had come off the windshield of a car crawling down the road toward her. The delivery message switched to “read,” and her pulse jumped. A new balloon appeared on the screen followed by three bouncing dots, but there were no words in it yet. If the shooter was in the car, she had just a sliver of time.
She rolled up the map and slipped it into her pack, then she stood, opened the truck door and grabbed her water bottle, and somehow in the middle of her reaching, the phone slipped from her hand and fell, hard. She looked up and around at the hill and the surrounding bluffs, then crouched and turned over the phone. The screen was shattered, entirely, pieces of glass sliding off and dropping to the ground. When she pressed the on button, the phone did not light up. The glass would shred everything, so she zipped her pack shut and threw her phone into the truck, shards flying everywhere. Taking her bearings, she pulled her pack onto her shoulders and ran straight for the curving terrace of rock that lay thirty yards east of their vehicles. As she ran, she stopped to check behind her just as the car pulled off the road and rolled slowly in her direction.
When she came to the basalt wall, she realized there was no way around it. She wedged herself into one of the angled corners and climbed straight up like she had on the way into Swallow Valley. In a few quick moves, she made it to the top and rolled across the rocks to the dirt on the other side. From this shallow depression she returned to her combat breathing. Then the car door slammed, barely audible over the rumble of the backhoe.
She knew she should keep her head down, but she didn’t want the man to sneak up on her, so she peered over the edge and saw him strutting around her truck with a military weapon slung across his back. He wore a pair of blue medical gloves, a white panama hat, and a garish Hawaiian shirt. After a quick inspection of the area, he stopped and removed his sunglasses, then he continued to the dead man, toed the body, placed the muzzle of the gun against the back of his head, and fired.
The backhoe kept working. The man walked down the incline, lifting the weapon to his shoulder. A few seconds after he disappeared, she heard the backhoe stop, and then the desert sounds filled in: an insectile shriek from the junipers and undulating clap-clap-clap pulse coming from all directions. Two more gunshots echoed across the space, then silence filled in as a group of wrens zipped past her and disappeared into the space beyond.
Sophia watched the man climb back up the draw and walk straight toward the turquoise pickup. After he searched the cab and bed completely, he began systematically tearing the truck apart, pulling the seats forward and cutting them open with a folding knife. When he finished, he shot out the tires, then moved on to her truck, which he dismantled in the same fashion. When he was done, he stood to one side and held up a can of her Dr Pepper, popped it open, and chugged it, wiping his mouth with the back of his forearm. Once it was gone, he shot out the tires of her truck, crushed the can with the heel of his shoe, then took it to his own car and left it on the seat.
“Thank you for the soft drink, Sophia,” the man shouted. “I found the sodas and the wallet you left behind. It surprises me how perfectly those twenty-three flavors quench my thirst. Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?” He paused and moved his gun to one shoulder. “I realize it is entirely possible that you have run off. Someone in good physical condition could be half a mile from here by now, which would be the safest thing. No doubt. Then again, a reasonable person might be wondering if running might reveal her position. Such a tremendous thing to weigh out. The whole situation makes you a little bit like Schrödinger’s cat, doesn’t it? To me, you are both alive and dead.” He paused, and Sophia closed her eyes, squeezing out the tears she’d been fighting against.
Sophia felt herself losing it agai
n.
“A few moments ago, as a final gesture, the gentleman on the backhoe informed me that the map I am looking for was on the hood of his truck. I see now that it’s missing. Since it is not in your truck, and since it doesn’t appear to have blown off—there are some torn pieces here under the magnets—I imagine the map is with you. So, I am giving you a one-time offer to set things right.”
From the south, she heard a vehicle. She imagined that it must be Paul. She hoped it was. The vehicle stopped, and she heard the echo of the door slamming.
“Hands where I can see them,” Paul directed.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“For starters, that’s my weapon, which means ten years of federal time for you.”
“How strange,” the man said. “I found this here, right in the middle of a tragic situation. I’m glad I have the opportunity to return it to you directly.”
Sophia rolled over and peered across the rocks and saw Paul, now in uniform, advancing with his pistol leveled at the man, who held Paul’s gun awkwardly out to the side with one hand.
“This escalated quickly,” the man said.
“Lace your fingers behind your head and get down on your knees,” Paul shouted.
Sophia was emboldened by Paul’s command of the situation, and she called out. “I’m up here.”
“Are you hurt?” Paul asked.
“I’m fine.”
The man looked in her direction and stared.
“Eyes over here,” Paul said. “Set that weapon on the ground.”
The man went down on his knees, relaxed his shoulder, and the gun dropped.
“Stay on your knees and move back,” Paul ordered.
“That will ruin my outfit,” the man said.
Picnic in the Ruins Page 21