I laughed. “Bleed, huh. I bet Chelsea is expensive. Isn’t she going to need a car soon?”
“Jesus, don’t remind me man. It’s hard enough keeping her in CDs and brand-name clothing. Oh, and she won’t wear just any brand. It has to come from a store that overcharges for everything. But the cool kids shop there.”
“So?”
“So, you remember being a kid. Image was everything. If I can make her life a little easier than mine was, what’s the harm in that?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m thinking I wouldn’t be the first to tell you how much you’re spoiling your daughter.”
“No, why?”
It was clear Chelsea had her daddy wrapped around her little finger. Maybe he felt guilty and wanted to compensate for her real mother not being there for her. Maybe it was his way of getting back at the world for what he had to go through growing up. It wasn’t really any of my business. He was the father, not me.
“Nothing. Never mind.” I smiled politely. He reminded me of a challenged rooster in a chicken coop with the way he eyed me. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to smack me or peck my eyes out.
“Right. Okay. So, take the fucking card, Xan.”
I did.
He followed me back downstairs. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“Depends.” I unzipped the backpack and loaded my clothes into it. His eyes got big when I pulled my two .357s out of the bottom of my old and ripped duffel bag.
“Holy shit. I didn’t know you had those.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t exactly wave them around much either.” I made sure they were unloaded then tucked one on either side of my clothes in the main compartment.
“Have they been in the house this whole time?”
I shook my head, dug in the bag again and dropped the handcuffs into the backpack. Chances were I’d need them. “I had them in the RS.”
“They’re huge.”
“Yeah. I know. I have to stop somewhere and buy bullets.”
I closed the zipper and left the backpack there on the floor while I shrugged into my leather jacket. Then I put the backpack on and tightened the straps enough so it was snug against my back.
“I gotta go now.”
We walked to the garage together in silence. Scott remained quiet until after the garage door was raised. “You’re gonna be okay, right, Xan?”
“Of course I’m going to be fine. Don’t worry.” I gave him a smile I didn’t exactly feel before he pulled me into a hug–almost exactly like when I first showed up.
“I’m going to miss you. I kind of got used to having you around to talk to.”
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Look, I wanted to be sure you have a means of communication, so I went ahead and picked up this pre-paid cellphone. If anyone calls for you, do you want me to have them call you?” He handed me some kind of no-name dark blue flip phone. I turned it over in my hands and pocketed it.
“Just Silvia. Everybody else, just get what they want and let me know yourself.”
“Whatever you want, man.” His gaze shifted to the car and back at me. “Xan...Gabe...damnit, be careful, okay?”
“If you fuck up my car, I’ll kick your ass, deal?”
He nodded slowly, a smile creeping over his features. “I won’t take her over ninety.”
“Asshole.”
“Fuckhead.” He hugged me again. “Take care, man. And call me if you need anything. I mean it.”
“I will.”
I started the Suzuki’s engine and pulled the gloves from my pocket to put them on. By the time I adjusted all the straps and buckles, my motorcycle was purring quietly. It was warmed up, meaning I was ready to go. The sky was dark overhead, with a thin line of violet along the horizon. I got on my bike and rode out of his driveway into the street.
Once I hit I-25 around Colorado Springs, I hauled ass. The bike seemed happy to oblige me, opening up nicely on those long stretches of road with little or no traffic on them whatsoever. Sure, there were big rigs–probably late for their next delivery, judging by the speed they were going–that hauled wood and shit in the dead of night just so a customer could walk into a store the next day and find what they were looking for. I always found the idea of truck-driving exciting as a kid. Now they were just hulking, growling patches of company–something for me to follow in the hypnotizing rhythm of riding on an open highway.
It was surprising that I hadn’t once wandered down this road into New Mexico in an entire three decades, considering the state was only about seven hours away. Since the bike only got so many miles to a tank, I got a few smoke breaks in and stretched my legs.
The dark mountains gave way to silent hills, which dumped me over New Mexico’s border a little past three in the morning. After I passed the customary brightly lit rest stop, I stopped the motorcycle on the side of the highway and killed the light. I wanted to see the sky. Like really see it. It yawned overhead, stretching to fill my line of sight with splatters and clumps of stars visible in the moonless night. Pale, ghostly clouds reflected the meager distant city lights. A dry wind stirred my hair and played with the loose strands, torn from the elastic tie by the grueling punishment of a constant headwind.
I realized I was shaking a little, nervous about going back to my childhood home, but the sky reassured me because it was the same. I could have taken Scott up on his offer to fly me to New Mexico, but I think it was important for me to feel the transition. Beyond checking out this weird mystery, I was going to face where I came from. Who I was. Who my mother was. I remembered her vaguely, but really the only thing I had of any of them was a worn strip of paper with Silvia’s address in Scott’s handwriting. Forty years ago, I’d left with my dad in his shiny black Pontiac. This now would be a reversal–a renewal, a homecoming to a vacant party. This reunion would be with the land itself, a few familiar faces, and I could maybe even learn a little about those who had gone before me.
I smoked a cigarette and watched a pale green star arc across the velvety black and glitter. The land was flatter here, the air warmer. Dirt showed in huge patches even here at the border, and the road changed on that line, fading to an old route, just like those in the old days. I thought of Dad and then Mom, and realized I was really alone in the world–just the bike, the sky, this cigarette and me. Only two of us were forever unchangeable.
The closest town was south of Raton Pass, and that was where I pulled in to shack up for the day. I had some calls to make, some shit to sort out, like where I was going to stay, and who I needed to talk to in order to get the right location of where Heather was found. Most of all, time to adjust to all of it.
I exited off to the main drag through town in search of a motel. It was a small burg, with a Holiday Inn and some place called the Snooze-Inn that looked independently run. The sign was neon, with a giant nose sticking up from a glowing pillow and ascending sizes of blue zees. The buildings were brown brick, with peaked shingled roofs and fake paned-glass windows. I chose it because small motels had a habit of not really caring about who I was. I think the clerk looked more tired than I felt. He was an older guy, sandy-blond hair and mustache with scraggly goatee. I paid in cash, gotten from the ATM at the corner store. He didn’t ask me for ID.
“There’s no smoking in the rooms. Is that okay?” he said as he printed up the papers. I handed him three twenties and nodded.
“Ice is on the first floor in the breezeway next to the vending machines. No pets, no visitors after midnight.” He glanced at the clock. “Obviously that doesn’t matter at this hour. When were you planning to check out, Mr...” His gaze dropped to my signature.
“Nez,” I said, using my real surname for the first time in a quarter of a century. “Gabriel. Not sure yet. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”
The clerk sucked in his cheeks and blew his bangs away from his forehead. “Okay. The billing clock starts over at noon. If you stay past that, I can let you slide for a day, but if you’re planning a long
er visit we have weekly rates.”
I snatched up the key and gave him a closed-lipped grin. “I’ll let you know.”
I climbed the stairs and stopped to look at the big brass key with the numbers “211” engraved on it. It was in the back, nice view of nothing and just the way I liked it. I threw my backpack on the bed, flipped on the TV and dug out my cigarettes. A visitors’ guide to Raton lay on the nightstand under the remote. A phone book and a Bible were the only things inside the drawer. The room was clean, with that typical motel-room smell: a scent of canned air, nylon and the ghosts of visitors past. The air conditioner was set to blue, which meant it was cold in there. Fresh towels in the John. Plastic translucent shower curtain. Tiny wrapped bars of soap, plastic tumblers and a round, pale blue ice bucket.
I smoked my last cigarette of the night standing in the door.
I didn’t dream often, but that day I dreamed of Heather and the way it all used to be. Tiny thing, slender and shapely, with soft lips and big brown eyes. Clutching her books to her chest, skirt just above her knees and suede boots. Glossy hair the color of coffee braided down her back. I’d take her hand in mine and walk with her across campus while other students thrust flyers at us for some cause or another. Hell, everybody had a cause back then. The world was in turmoil and just about to hit the age of excess, and there we were. Yeah, I’d loved Heather. Problem was I never was in love with her. I realized we made better friends before she did, and when it came down to the line and I made my choice, she was devastated and we never talked again.
In the dream, she was sitting in my RS, even though I didn’t have it drivable until well after she’d gone back to the res. The engine was running and she stared at the dash. Something’d been said but it was like I was thrown into this exact time and place again, only under different circumstances. She licked her lips and a tear slid down one cheek when I glanced over at her.
“I’m never going to see you again.” She wasn’t asking. In movements so fast I couldn’t react, she was standing outside the car, waving at me and I pulled away from the curb, watching helplessly as some dark shadowy thing took her down in my rearview mirror.
I snapped awake in the motel room, stretched across the still-made bed. The only sounds in the room were the air conditioner and a muffled TV advertisement from next door. I sat up and rubbed my face, pulling my hair back into a ponytail before standing to reach for my smokes. I’d left my own TV on, but the sound was muted. I picked up the remote from the bed and turned the volume up. I had a cigarette in my mouth about to step out when my little prepaid cellphone rang. It was Silvia.
“I hope you don’t mind, Scott has given me your number. My name is Silvia Redhouse and I knew your father.” Which was me, of course. She sounded the same but not, and I waited several beats before I answered her.
“No, that’s fine. I’m in Raton now.”
“He wasn’t sure if you’d driven through or not and mentioned you sleep during the day. Did I wake you?”
“I was up. Did you want to meet?”
“Yes, there’s a diner on the edge of town. Rosco’s, I believe it is called. It’ll take me half an hour to get there. Will that be all right?”
I sat on the bed. “Yeah, I’ll find it. I’m on a blue motorcycle.”
“I’ll be driving my red Willys. Thank you again for coming, Gabriel.” She hung up and I closed the phone to toss it on the nightstand next to a paper tent with important numbers printed on it for the motel. I had my cigarette just outside the door and took a quick shower afterward, combing my wet hair out only to throw it back into an elastic band again after I got dressed.
Rosco’s was something of a truck stop-type place with big pumps for semi-haulers and large windows set in a buff-bricked building. When I pulled up, on time as promised, the lot was fairly full of cars. I spotted her little sport-utility and parked my bike next to it. The on-duty waitress greeted me with a menu, but I just shook my head and scanned the garnet-colored pleather-covered booths. A busboy trundled along with a loaded cart of dirty dishes over the terracotta tile.
“I’m supposed to meet someone here, can you help me? Her name’s Silvia.” Sure I knew what Silvia looked like, but my kid sure the hell wouldn’t know her from Eve. Fortunately, the waitress knew who I was talking about and led me to a table where an older Navajo woman sat, staring out the window. The waitress cleared her throat, grabbing Silvia’s attention. Her jaw dropped open when she looked up at me.
“Can you just give us a minute?” Silvia stood and sat her purse down on the table to give me a great big hug. I had to lean down a little to let her wrap her arms around my neck and she kissed my cheek. She wore big turquoise-and-silver rings and her salt-and-pepper hair was tied back in a thick braid. A necklace with more turquoise and silverwork lay over her forest-green sweater. She had her sister’s rounded face, only more so. She wasn’t fat or skinny, but someplace in between. I gave a nervous chuckle as I untangled from her fierce grip and we slid into the booth again.
She blinked at me. “You have to be Gabriel’s son.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Call me Silvia. You look just like him.” She reached for her coffee, which was still steaming. She hadn’t been there much longer than me.
“Who?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Your father. I had to be sure you weren’t a vision.”
I laughed. “Well thanks. Yeah, I’m Gabriel Junior.”
“It is a good match for you.” She narrowed her eyes. “So, you live in Colorado. Who took care of you when you were growing up?”
“I lived with my mom but she’s dead now too.”
Her look of surprise melted into sorrow. “I see. Did Scott fill you in on what has happened here?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m here to help you however I can.”
The waitress we’d shooed off earlier returned armed with menus. “Coffee?”
I glared at her. “No.”
“I’ll have some more, thanks.” Silvia also refused the menu. The waitress looked hurt and shuffled away with the rejected menus. I watched Silvia open one of the creamer containers and dump it into her coffee. “You’ll have to excuse me, Gabriel. I wasn’t expecting you to look so much like your father.” She took a sip of the coffee and smiled briefly at it before eyeing me again, like she still wasn’t sure that I wasn’t an apparition sitting there across from her. I leaned back against the seat and unzipped my jacket, exposing my black t-shirt. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Hell, I was trying not to stare at her. After the initial newness of meeting her wore off, I was freaking out over how old she looked. Silvia had been older than me and had to be pushing her late fifties. I stared at the tabletop instead. “I’m sorry about your sister.”
“Your father loved her very much.”
Funny how people would step in to explain how I felt when I wasn’t there or they thought I wasn’t. “It was mentioned that he saw her for a bit, yeah.” I knew she smoked before she pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims and reached for the tin ashtray, I could smell it on her. I followed her example and we sat in silence, smoking thoughtfully. She didn’t seem to mind the absence of conversation.
“So, where’s Heather now?”
She tapped her cigarette on the lip of the ashtray and looked at me. In her aged face, her dark brown eyes were still the same as I remembered them. It was creepy. “She’s being held at the morgue.”
“And you said she had a bite on her neck?”
“That is what the police said, yes.”
“Aren’t the police doing the investigation?”
She smirked. “I know most of the people that work in that hospital. And the police will do nothing.” She scowled. “Your mother wasn’t Dineh was she?”
Dineh was what the Navajo called themselves, translated to simply mean “the people.” I knew that, but I didn’t know much else. Hell, I had been eight. Vague memories of relatives speaking Navajo remained but the words were lo
st to me. If I ever really got it in the first place, because they taught English in our schools back then. I shook my head at her. “White.”
“For the Dineh, it is hard to get help.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Something killed my sister, and I want to know what.”
I nodded and crushed out my cigarette. “All right. Let’s go then.”
“Go?” She blinked. “Go where?”
I leaned forward. “Can you get me in to see her? I mean see Heather?”
She hesitated for a moment, hope sparking behind those dark eyes, before nodding slowly. Then she pulled her purse up into her lap, a black bag more or less, with double handles, and even more silverwork. She pulled out a small beaded coin purse and started digging around in it for change but I stopped her.
“I’ll get it.” I reached for my wallet in my back pocket.
“That is not necessary.”
“Silvia.” I frowned. “I said I’ll get it.”
Her face brightened. “If you want to, that would be good of you.”
She followed me on my bike back to the motel where I dropped it off and got in her truck. A ’66 Willys, to be exact. Red, with wood paneling along the sides. To my relief, she didn’t drive like an old lady. We rode with the windows down and, with every bump in the road, they rattled in the doors. The Willys was nice enough but not mint, just an everyday-use vehicle she’d obviously taken care of. She had an AM radio only, and after fiddling with the stations, probably to appease me, she turned it off.
“So, what is it you do?” I raised my voice slightly to account for the wind.
“I am a park ranger. Heather and I both. Well, she was.”
Bad subject. I switched gears. “So, how well did you know my dad?”
She blinked hard behind the wheel and for a minute I thought she hadn’t heard me.
“Not all too well, but he was a good man.” She glanced at me. “Can I ask how he died?”
Another bad subject, obviously. “He died when I was a baby. I think it was alcohol poisoning.”
She frowned. “How sad. He never drank when I knew him.”
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