A Prayer for Travelers

by Ruchika Tomar

  “You’re going to get up right now,” Fischer said.

  23

  Penny knocked on the door late morning, breathless, having hitched a ride from the early cook to the local road, walking the rest of the way. She wore her hair in a long braid over one shoulder, her cheeks flushed, the fine hairs curling up around her forehead.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice on the porch like a star. I let her in and we walked back to the kitchen. She took a seat at the table and poured herself a cup of coffee, tucking a leg underneath her on the chair. I had taken down Lamb’s tray of pills on the kitchen counter and lined up the vials. She helped herself to the plate of bacon Lamb had left on the table, watching me shake out his pills and count them back into their containers one by one. It was gratifying to see someone eat so casually, as if only for the pleasure of the activity. If Lamb was here I would point to Penny as a model of appetite and vitality. Do you see? This is how it’s done!

  She waited for me to finish counting, to replace the tray in the cupboard behind an old bag of flour, as Lamb had. When I was done I took a seat at the table. She picked up another piece of bacon, watching me with those deep, dark eyes that could swallow the whole world. “Cale,” she said, “¿qué haces?”

  “Lamb forgot to take his medicine two days in a row.”

  “Maybe he didn’t forget.”

  “Penny.”

  “Cale. What can you do about it?”

  Behind the house came the sound of dirt bikes revving up; they would peel up and down the desert until after dark.

  “I don’t know,” I finally said.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” she said, glancing out at the yard, the sound of the bikes. “Have you been outside yet?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do.” She was looking out the window, her gaze spanning our rocky yard, the scrub-strewn grade sloping upward to the fence, the mountain behind it. “When was the last time you went up there?”

  “The mountain? Not since I was a kid. Ten years.”

  “So let’s go.”

  “Ugh. No way.”

  “Yes way, Cale. All you want to do is count pills. We’ll trade off, okay? One thing I want to do, then one thing for you.”

  “All we ever do is what you want.” Until I said it out loud, I didn’t realize it was true. All this time I must have been cataloging our moments together, sorting them into recognizable piles. Mine, hers, mine, hers. For her part, Penny seemed largely unconcerned.

  “I just have better ideas,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  The air was finally clean again, still cool in pockets of shade. I carried a stepstool from the house across the yard. The dogs walked with us, nudging our legs, eager to know our plans. Wolf trotted ahead, then stopped to look back, wanting to make certain we would follow. Penny was more comfortable with them now, grazing Trixie’s ear with her fingertips. We climbed the grade first, a pebbled, weedy ridge, our sneakers slipping on the ascent. As a child, the grade itself had been a challenge, producing countless scabbed knees and elbows. One particularly rough tumble resulted in a sprained ankle, another, a busted chin. If Lamb hadn’t encouraged it, I would have avoided the mountain altogether. But the land beyond our fence, like the vacant expanse between those lost casinos, was a place Lamb shed his gruff and forgot himself to pleasure. When I finally mastered climbing the grade, Lamb would jump the fence first, then lift me over, his arms made sinewy from years of hauling ice. Once my sneakers touched down on the other side of the mountain, I tore away from him, hunting off trail for wild penstemon and wily lizards, overturning rocks and digging through weeds, poking into the dark, secret spaces between boulders, where scorpions might hide from the sun. Yet I never went so far that I couldn’t see the speck of his work shirt in the distance. Even then I knew, if we were ever to lose each other, which one of us would be the better off. One of us already knew how to be alone.

  I was relieved to find that the grade had become, with age, much easier work. Once we made it to the top, I set the stool in the corner of our fence and hauled myself up to straddle the ledge, balancing on the flat, narrow precipice, toes dangling. For a moment my old, childish hesitation returned. Then I pushed off, dropping to the ground. A second later, Penny pulled herself up and over the fence, landing next to me. Wolf and Trixie barked furiously from the other side, distressed at our vanishing.

  From the window in our kitchen, as Penny would have seen it first, the mountain must have looked like an extension of our property, as much ours as any tangled weed. But on this side of the fence, that illusion collapsed. We were standing in the midst of the mountain’s wild expanse; miles of tightly pebbled earth and sparse brush, an incline of swale grass, dry weeds, and boulders stretched toward a cerulean sky. I bent down and dug my hands into the dirt, letting the fine ochre dust sift through my fingers. Though Penny had been the one to suggest the hike, she was waiting for me to begin. Only now I realized how inappropriately we were dressed in our shorts and tank tops, how we had neglected to bring any of the essentials—sunscreen, hats, water, food. In the ten years that had passed since I last set foot on the mountain, I had forgotten everything I once knew. It was too late to go back. I started off, Penny in tow.

  Hikers had cut switchbacks in various ascents over the mountain; some trails were overgrown, others still clear enough to maneuver. For a long time we didn’t speak, bent on creating distance between the house and ourselves. The small rocks of the trail crunched underfoot; I could feel them sticking in the tread of my sneakers. I scanned the ground, too dry to preserve tracks. A few feet from the trail I spied the furred tapers of coyote scat. After a half mile, I stopped to catch my breath. Penny twisted her hair into a pile on the top of her head, her cheeks flushed pink once more. Trying to find her footing over a small formation of rocks, she stumbled and shot out a hand for balance. I grabbed it, steadying her. We had come high enough that when we looked back we could see down into the yard, Wolf a small hunkered shape in the center of it. Even from a distance I could tell he was still tracking us, his body tense. I waved, setting him barking again, the sound a faint echo down below.

  “What do you think he’s saying?” Penny asked.

  Already I regretted not bringing water. My mouth felt full of sand.

  “Pissed you ate all the bacon,” I said. But I wondered if Wolf, who spent years patrolling our borders, knew something about the mountain that even I did not.

  The cool air was slowly burning off, the sun moving directly overhead. Somehow we’d switched places; now I was following Penny up a scrabble of rocks. As the incline grew steep, I could feel the rosy heat of sunburn bloom on my arms and legs. Every now and then a slight breeze fluttered by, desperately welcome. I bent to snap a poppy from its stem and handed it to Penny. She tucked it behind her ear. After several yards she snapped off another flower, folding the stem into her braid. We were high up now. I slowed to maneuver over a steep slope, the sound of dirt bikes long since faded. If one of us was to slip, it would take the other climbing all the way back down to get help. I recalled my earlier conversation with Lamb, the mountain lions roused from their dens, dislocated by the recent fires. Those that didn’t steal into backyards would climb higher still, seeking the coverage of unburnt brush. I stepped over a patch of chaparral and a small lizard shot past my foot, green and purple skin stippled in the light. Penny pulled a hairband from her wrist and handed it back to me. I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and felt cool for a few minutes before the tops of my ears began to burn.

  Thirty yards ahead to the right was a large, flat boulder grouped near several others. I called out to Penny and we adjusted our trajectory, heading for the outcrop. I reached the boulder first and climbed on. Penny climbed up next to me, lifting her braid from the back of her neck. I lay back and settled my bones against the rough surface, the rock’s stored heat toasting my back a
nd hips. I imagined all the mountain’s wildlife that had roamed by and done the same. Penny stretched back, too, and we stared up at the bright, impossible blue sky, unbroken by a single cloud. When she spoke her voice emerged disembodied, as if originating from within the natural world surrounding us.

  “Did you know there’s a tribe of women living near Russia somewhere, camping on a sliver of ice all year round, just helping the reindeer get around?”

  “That sounds cold,” I said. But then I laughed, picturing it, squeezing my eyes shut. I saw sunbursts through my eyelids. I had a sense I was falling, though I knew I hadn’t moved at all. I forced myself to open my eyes again. “Where did you read that?”

  “In a magazine. You want to be warm? There are places you can climb real volcanoes. There are women who do that.”

  “I’ve never even seen the ocean,” I said. But I had read about it, the way it had been described in the best book of fifth grade: The sea is smooth. It is a flat stone without any scratches. Penny raised her arms to the sky, moving them like waves above us.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it. We’ll live on the water, hunt sharks, sew blankets out of kelp. If we’re going to sail, we’ll need a boat.”

  “Getting the boat isn’t the problem,” she said, as if we’d already discussed this many times. “The problem is you’re not serious. At some point you have to stop reading, and start doing.”

  “Do I?” I was silent for a long time. “Do you think maybe there are some people who just aren’t meant to do things?”

  “No. There are just people who are scared, and people who aren’t.”

  It was getting too hot on the rock. I had to shift onto my side to avoid searing my back. But I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to stay, I wished all our problems were like a boat we had already learned to sail in our hypothetical, fantastic future. There would never be a better time to ask.

  “Penny. Do you remember the new guy from school?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Eric,” I said. “Long blond ponytail. He always sat by himself in the quad at lunch. He works at the Trap now.”

  “What about him?”

  “He came in to Jake’s yesterday. He said you went by the Trap last month. That he’d seen you at the Texaco.”

  “So?”

  “Penny.” I sat up too fast, the blood rushing to my head. I could see all the way down the mountain to our speck of yard, the winding road that led down the hill to town. But I could no longer make out the dogs. They had abandoned their watch, retreating to the shade of the porch. Penny remained perfectly still, eyes closed, her impeccable features composed, her hands folded on her stomach. I grabbed her sneakered foot, shook it.

  “What, Cale.”

  “Is it true?”

  “What do you think?” She didn’t bother opening her eyes.

  “Are you selling pills down there? Or what?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was serious. Taking that risk, trafficking in probabilities. But that wasn’t what she meant. Does it matter to you? A part of me, annoyed she would even ask. “I care that you could get arrested. Or worse. What if—”

  Penny sat up on the rock and one of the poppies fell from her hair onto the boulder. She began to pull the burrs from her socks. I reached for the flower, its petals already wilted.

  “Do you know these guys?”

  “They’re all the same, Cale.”

  “Was it Flaca’s idea?”

  She gave me a wry look. “It’s been every girl’s idea, forever.”

  I threw the wilted poppy at her. She raised her hands in mock protest. “What’s your problem? You want to come with me?”

  I could tell she was trying to lighten the mood. She still didn’t really want to talk about it.

  “I just want you to be more scared of some things,” I said. I hesitated, meeting her eyes. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  She sobered a little. “No.”

  “Then are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Not at all,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  We started off again. We had only been climbing for a few minutes when Penny grabbed me, digging her long nails into my forearm. I cried out, trying to pull away.

  “Snake,” she whispered.

  I froze, scanning the ground. It took a moment to decipher the long tawny body and chocolate markings from the brush and gravel, already slithering off toward the shade of a rock. She waited for it to disappear before loosening her hold. When I looked down I discovered five crescent-shaped indentations in my flesh, the mark closest to my wrist beading red. She looked pale, glancing guiltily at the damage.

  “It’s just a gopher snake,” I said. My arm was throbbing. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded in the direction we had been going, indicating I should go ahead. I started to walk, Penny sticking so close behind I could hear her breathing; feel her tense at every sound. I should have suggested we turn around, but for some reason I’d become desperate to finish what we started, to exert our power, if nowhere else, over this single achievable goal. And although I was still worried about what she was doing at the Texaco—on some level, I understood not wanting to talk about it, not knowing how to feel—I was hurt she couldn’t, didn’t want to discuss it.

  It took another half hour to reach the peak, and when we finally arrived I searched for the absolute highest point, the apex so clearly defined from my bedroom window. From where we stood, it all looked the same. Still we walked around, admiring the view. Penny stopped at a western-facing vista and propped her leg on one of the small boulders lining the crest, holding up her hand to shield her eyes. I had to smile at the picture she made. She could have been any of those infamous conquistadors from the paintings in our middle school history books: Hernán Cortés surveying the spoils of combat, Pizarro conquering the Incas. Only our kingdom amounted to gradations of rock, the sprawl of dirt and char, a cluster of streamlined roads intersecting at the junction. Penny glanced over her shoulder, smiling too when she saw my face, already expecting to be let in on the joke. If anyone could turn a battleground of rivals into willing subjects, it would have been her. I gestured to Pomoc stretched out below. I told her about the photos I remembered from history class, her unconscious mimicry. I lifted my imaginary skirts to bend in mock curtsy.

  “Your spoils, m’lady.”

  Penny turned to look again, adjusting her perspective.

  “Ours,” she said.

  41

  Outside the Texaco, Fischer kept tight hold of my arm above the elbow, steering me past the gas pumps and the outdoor bathrooms. We passed a dark car near the dumpsters, nearly indiscernible in the shadows. Fischer made a terse gesture in its direction; the car returned no indication that we’d been seen. I squinted in the dim light, but beyond a vague human outline, I couldn’t make out anyone behind the wheel. Two long freight cabs were parked in a T by the diesel pumps. Otherwise the lot was empty. Fischer guided me toward a black sedan parked on the gravel and folded me into the passenger seat, waiting until I was buckled in before slamming it shut. The car’s interior was cool and quiet, a discreet maple air freshener on the dash. I could detect Fischer’s scent underneath it, too. I tried the door, the sound like a hollow metal latch straining. Fischer came around the driver’s side and climbed in, starting the engine.

  “Child locked,” he said. “For adults who act like children.”

  He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting between us. I tried to imagine the hours he must have spent traveling back and forth to county, the freedoms he allowed himself when he was all alone, the music he played, if he ever relaxed enough to sing along. The only sound now was the car’s tires over the uneven roads, our headlights filtering the dark, but the silhouette of the road was enough to orient
me. Even Pomoc’s vacant stretches of gravel were recognizable, the rabbitbrush in the headlights.

  “How did you get to the gas station?” he asked me.

  “I caught a ride.”

  “You make that a habit, hopping in cars with strangers?”

  “You’re a stranger.” I could still feel his thumb sliding up and down my neck. “Did you get a chance to talk to Penny’s other friends?”

  Fischer didn’t take his eyes off the road. “How does your grandfather get you to drop something once you’ve got your teeth in it?”

  “If it was Ava who took off, would you drop it?”

  “What makes you think she hasn’t?” We came to a stoplight, the eerie red glow accentuating his high forehead, a bump on the bridge of his nose healed from a break, his flexible mouth. “She’s taken off before. Forgets to call. Drives her mother crazy.”

  “But not you.”

  “Of course me, too. But I know where to find her, and when she’s ready, she always comes back home.” He glanced over. “What about you? You ever forget to call Lambert?”

  The signal changed, the car’s interior filling with emerald light as we passed under before dissipating into pitch, as if there was an invisible tether attached to the front of the sedan, pulling us deeper into night.

  “No one really forgets,” I said.

  I realized we were heading toward the mountain, though I hadn’t provided Fischer with any directions. He turned the sedan at the end of the hill and we began to climb.

  “How do you know where I live?”

  “I know a lot of things.”