Until the car.
The stars tell me it’s not yet midnight. I step over to where the ground drops off and watch the headlights as they come down the otherwise deserted two-lane blacktop below.
A few hundred yards past my camp, the car pulls over. The passenger door opens and a figure stumbles out onto the packed dirt on the side of the road. I make it to be a woman or a girl, with that head of hair, though I’ve known my share of long-haired guys. But she doesn’t move like a guy.
Once she gets her balance, she lunges back toward the car but the door slams shut. The driver stomps on the gas, spitting gravel. The figure runs a little ways after the car, only stopping when she sees she doesn’t have a hope in hell of catching up. She stands there for a long moment, shoulders drooping, arms hanging at her sides in defeat. Then she sinks to the ground and sits there hugging her knees.
The coyotes howl again, closer than the last time I heard them. I’m not worried, but the woman below jerks her head.
Coyote attacks are rare. She doesn’t know that. Or maybe she’s smart to be nervous because, bottom line, you can’t trust anything you meet out here in the desert. Not the thorns, the heat, the mountains, the animals, the people. Maybe especially not the people.
Possum Jones, the old desert rat who took me under his wing way back in the eighties, told me his number one rule was, don’t get involved. You see somebody, best walk in the other direction.
“Most times,” he said in that drawl of his, “you’ll get more sympathy from a hungry mountain lion.”
Of course, this was while he was setting my broken leg after he found me at the bottom of a canyon, so I took what he had to say with a grain of salt. Until that moment, we’d never met. But the fact of the matter is, up in the mountains, out in the desert, most times he’s right.
That girl down there, she could be in trouble. Or could be she had a little spat with her boyfriend and he’s already on his way back. He catches me with his girl, he could pull out a 12-gauge and teach me the difference between buckshot and gut shot. Let me give you a hint. The first causes the pain. The second is the pain.
“Goddamn,” I mutter as I turn back to my camp.
I pack up my gear and throw dirt on the fire, then make my way down to the highway. It’s a roundabout route, so it takes me a good fifteen minutes before I’m standing on the blacktop. I’m a quarter of a mile south of the woman. I don’t know which I’m hoping for more—that she’ll be there, or she’ll be gone—but when the highway takes me around the headland, I see the small figure still huddled on the side of the road.
I start to whistle an old cowboy tune as I get closer, to give her some warning. The first few bars of “Streets of Laredo” work just fine. Her head lifts like it did when the coyotes called, but she doesn’t do anything more than look over her shoulder in my direction.
I sigh. She’s just a kid—I doubt she’s even sixteen—and too damn trusting. Meeting a stranger out here, she should have been smart and taken to the scrub till she could figure out what’s up. I’m at least three times her age and twice her size. But all she does is sit there, still hugging her knees, watching me come.
I stop ten feet away, lower my pack to the dirt and hunch down to reduce the appearance of my size, resting my weight on my ankles.
She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, sneakers with no socks. She looks cold, and I don’t blame her. Once the sun goes down in the mountains, the temperature drops with it. I’m wearing a sweater under my jean jacket and I can still feel the chill in the air.
“Hey,” I say.
She just looks at me.
I dig a bottle of water from my pack and offer it to her. “You thirsty?”
“Fuck off.”
Nice.
“Your mama kiss that mouth of yours?” I ask.
“The only part of her that ever touched my mouth is the back of her hand.”
Okay.
“Was that her who pushed you out of the car?”
“What are you—stalking me?”
“I was camped up there.” I jerk a thumb up to the top of the ridge. “It’s more like you brought your drama into my living room.”
“You live out here?”
“Most of the time.”
She scoots around so that she’s no longer looking at me over her shoulder.
“What do you do?” she asks.
“Commune with nature?”
“I bet you run drugs. You got any weed in your bag? Maybe some uppers?”
I sigh, but I don’t answer. “Who pushed you out of the car?”
“Why do you care?”
I want to be charitable. I really do. But I’ve never had the patience for this kind of crap.
“Not so much, I guess,” I say and stand up. “Not enough to have to work at it, that’s for damn sure. I’ll leave you the water—you’ll need it when the sun comes up. You have yourself a good day.”
“Hey!” she calls when I start to walk away. “You can’t just leave me here.”
“Watch me,” I reply without turning.
“It was my dad—okay? That’s who dumped me here.”
This time I stop and turn to look back at her. She’s standing up, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her hoodie, a challenging look in her eyes.
I have no idea how to respond.
“Jesus,” I finally say. “Why would he do that?”
“To make room for a new foster kid.”
“So he’s your foster father.”
She shakes her head. “But he gets money for each foster kid they take in. He’s up to three now, but if he gets rid of me, there’s room for one more.”
This is why I live in the mountains and desert. They insulate you from the crap people do to each other.
“Seems to me you’ve got three choices,” I tell her. I count them off on my fingers. “You can wait here. Come morning, you might be able to hitch a ride to wherever you need to go.
“Or you can come back to my camp and wait while I go find somebody that can help you.
“Or you can take the hike with me.”
“Why don’t you just call somebody?” she asks.
“Don’t have a phone.”
She gives me a look. “Everybody’s got a phone.”
“Okay. So where’s yours?”
“I use Reggie’s, and seeing how things played out today, I guess I won’t be borrowing it again.”
“And he’s...?”
“My loser dad.”
Everywhere this conversation goes, it takes me to a story I don’t want to hear.
“Three choices,” I tell her. “Which is it going to be?”
“Can we go to your camp and take the hike in the morning? I don’t want to go walking into a cactus.”
There’s still hours before the moon sets, but I guess she’s a city kid and doesn’t see the way I can out here. Hell, I can make my way through this land in the dark of the moon.
“Sure. We can do that.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later we’re back on the bluff from which I first spotted her. I get the fire started again and she sits up close to it, my spare blanket wrapped around her shoulders while she stares into the flames. I boil some water and make tea.
“Here,” I tell her as I hand her a tin mug. “Sorry, I don’t have sugar or milk.”
“’Sokay.”
“You hungry?”
She shakes her head.
I settle across the fire from her. “I’m Steve. What’s your name?”
“Sadie.”
“Huh.”
She looks up, that challenge back in her eyes. “I know it’s a loser name. I didn’t pick it.”
“It’s not that. My grandmother’s name was Sadie.”
I guess she sees something in my face because she asks, “What happened to her?”
“She got the death penalty for killing her husband. This was back in Texas, where the family’s from. She might have gotten off, or only
had to serve some time, but instead of shooting him when he was hitting her, she waited until he was drunk and asleep, and then shot him in the face.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and I wonder what the hell made me tell her that. I walked the desert with Possum Jones for twenty years and it never came up once.
Her head lifts and she looks at me from across the fire. The firelight makes the glint in her eyes look fierce. “I can relate to that,” she says.
“I like to believe that we can be better than that, myself,” I tell her, “but honestly? Knowing what a piece of work my grandfather was? I can relate to it, too. I still miss her.”
“Must be nice, having family you can miss.”
“So you’ve got nobody else you can stay with? Friends? Kin?”
She shakes her head. “Reggie didn’t like us making friends outside the house.”
“Sounds like Reggie’s a real piece of work.”
She shrugs and takes a sip of her tea, pulling a face at the bitter taste.
“So what do you want to do?” I ask.
She gives me a puzzled look.
“With your life,” I say. “Where do you want to go? What do you want to do with your life?”
“I don’t know. I don’t wanna go anywhere. There’s no place to go anyway.”
“What did you think was going to happen when you came up here to my camp?”
“I thought maybe you’d fuck me and then give me some money.”
“What?”
“Except I guess you don’t think I’m pretty enough.”
I shake my head. “You’ve got this all wrong.”
“You wouldn’t have to look at my face while you’re doing it.”
“For Christ’s sake—you could be my granddaughter.”
“But—”
“It’s never going to happen, kid.”
Confusion returns to her face. “Reggie says old guys all like to fuck young girls.”
“Yeah, well, Reggie needs his face rearranged.”
“That’s not all he needs rearranged. He can’t get it up anymore, and that pisses him off.”
“Listen kid, you shouldn’t even know that shit.”
She shrugs. “It’s just what it is. So what?”
“Jesus. You’re young and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Focus on getting an education. Make something of yourself. You ever hear the expression ‘success is the best revenge’?”
She shakes her head.
“You make something of yourself and that just shows losers like Reggie you’re better than them.”
“But I’m not.”
“Don’t say that,” I tell her.
She fiddles with the cuffs of the hoodie, pulls them down over her knuckles. She won’t look at me.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she says.
“I know people who can help you.”
“Why would they?”
“Because it’s what they do. You should get some rest. It’s a bit of hike in the morning.”
She nods. “You don’t sound much like a Texan,” she says.
“How would you know what we sound like?”
“You think I’ve never seen a movie or a TV show? They all talk funny.”
“Maybe when I left home I made a point of learning to talk like a Yankee.”
“Why would you do that?” she asks.
I shrug. “Kids get embarrassed about the stupidest things. If I had to do it over, I wouldn’t. But now this is just the way I talk. The only time you’ll hear me drawl these days is when I’m putting it on.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why don’t you get yourself some rest.”
She has another sip of her tea and grimaces again before she sets it down in the sand by the fire.
“You need to get some normal tea,” she says as she lies down. “That tastes like a dog pissed in it.”
“Goodnight to you, too,” I tell her.
I finish my own tea. It’s not my best batch, but it beats buying it from a store. I wait until her breathing evens out, then stand up and stretch. I walk away from the camp and take a leak. When I get back, Calico’s sitting on a rock, a big grin on her face.
I don’t know why she’s attached herself to me, but it’s not like I got any choice in the matter. She just showed up a few years ago, not long after Possum died, and has been hanging around ever since. Not that I mind—her smarts and beauty are off the chart.
“Didn’t think I’d see you tonight,” I say. “I thought you said you were off leading the dog boys on a chase.”
She shrugs. “I took them up through Devil’s Canyon and wore them right out. Those boys are not in good shape.” She nods to the sleeping girl. “Didn’t take you for the nurturing type.”
“I’m not. But she needs help.”
“Yeah, I overheard. I was feeling horny before I got here, but listening to her story pretty much put a damper on that.”
That’s Calico in a nutshell: full of innuendo and mischief.
“I’m taking her to Morago—see if he can help.”
“But she’s not Kikimi.”
“Neither’s the money they got for their center.”
Calico cocks her head. “Except I thought it came to them with no strings attached.”
“It did. Same as Sadie’s coming to them. They can help or not, but I’m hoping they’ll help. It’s pretty damn obvious her own people are useless.”
She nods. “Call me if you decide to go break this Reggie’s head. But remember, it’s not the Wild West anymore. They come after you for stuff like that now, doesn’t matter how justified.”
“Call you?” I say with a laugh. “How am I supposed to do that? Neither of us even has a—”
But she’s already gone.
* * *
“Who was that woman that came by last night?” Sadie asks me in the morning.
I’m in the middle of pouring myself a second cup of coffee and almost drop the pot.
“You saw her?”
“Well, yeah. Was I not supposed to? You could’ve told me you already have a girlfriend.”
I stop, mid-pour. I was sure the kid was dead asleep. It’s a good thing Calico and I didn’t get into anything amorous.
“You really saw her?” I repeat.
“Have you been into the weed? That’s what I just said. And what’s with the furry deal? Is that your kink?”
I don’t know what to say. My girlfriend’s a—for lack of a better term—foxalope. Part antelope, part fox. You should see the look on Calico’s face when I use the word. She looks to be in her mid-thirties, with a shock of fox-red hair that she usually wears loose, and a pair of small antelope horns push up from the top of her brow. Some days, she’s also got fox ears and a big bushy tail. She calls herself a ma’inawo, which is Kikimi for “cousin.”
We keep our relationship on the down-low, so this is weird, and I don’t know how to explain it.
“Furry?” I manage. “That’s a thing?”
She nods. “Yeah, you know. People who put on costumes, pretending they’re some kind of animal. It’s how they get it up.”
“Sure,” I say. “Let’s go with that.”
“And that’s what turns you on?”
“No, she’s—look, we should get going.”
I turn away and start packing my gear, covering the fire.
“God, I hope I never grow old,” she says. “If you’ve got a kink, so what? Own it.”
I don’t bother answering.
* * *
Three hours later a gaggle of rez dogs welcomes us into Abigail White Horse’s yard. They run circles around us, barking, tails wagging. Sadie shrinks away from them and moves closer to me.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “They’re friendly.”
“Yeah, tell that to the last guy they ate.”
Aggie’s place is high up in the foothills at the end of a couple of miles of winding dirt road. It’s a lo
ng low adobe building with a lean-to and corral made of saguaro ribs on the south. A pair of those big cacti dominate one side of the yard, with a stand of raggedy mesquite and palo verde on the other. There’s the remains of a fire pit out past the corral. Farther up the hill is a little adobe casita that serves as the old woman’s studio.
She comes out of the little building now, drawn by the dogs’ welcome. Someone once told me she’s got to be in her eighties or more, but she looks more like she’s in her late sixties. Out hiking, she’s got staying power long past anything I can muster, and I can jog for a couple of hours under the hot summer sun. She’s sturdily built, with an open brown face and grey-white hair pulled back into a long braid.
“I thought you were Old Man Puma,” she says, “coming down off the mountain the way you did. Pretty sure you gave the dogs a heart attack.”
“We were up on the ridge trail.”
She nods. Her gaze shifts to Sadie.
“Who’s your friend?” she asks.
“Says her name is Sadie. I found her up north on Zahra Road.”
“Found her? Was there a wreck?”
I shake my head. “She got tossed from a car.”
Aggie frowns.
“It wasn’t moving,” I add.
“And that makes it better?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She focuses her attention back to Sadie.
“How are you holding up, child?” she asks.
Sadie fiddles with the cuffs of her hoodie and shrugs. “I’m fine,” she says.
Aggie studies her until the girl finally looks up. Sadie shifts from foot to foot, but she doesn’t look away. Aggie has that effect on people.
“So you’re looking for a safe place for her?” Aggie asks me.
I nod.
“Whoa,” Sadie says. “I’m not staying out here in the middle of nowhere.”
The Wind in His Heart Page 2