Frank displayed his vest patch with pride. “And if you’re not careful, Becca,” Frank said, attempting to one-up his friend, “Dooley here will try to turn you against the sweetest piece of tail ever to grace the silver screen simply because he doesn’t like her politics.”
Becca noticed the patch on Dooley’s vest pocket: I’ll forgive Jane Fonda when the Jews forgive Hitler.
Now it was Dooley’s face turning red. “She’s a traitor and a b—”
“Hey!” snapped Frank. “There’s a lady at the table.”
“Enough of the bickering!” Elaine interrupted brightly. “Check out what King’s daughter did last night!” She lifted Becca’s arm by the elbow. “Come on, honey. Show off your new accessory.”
Becca held out her wrist for inspection. The group was clearly impressed. King just shook his head, but he looked more amused than angry.
“Your girl loves you,” Elaine said. King grunted and packed a plastic spoonful of corn flakes into his mouth.
After breakfast, the group suited up and loaded their bikes. Elaine climbed onto the passenger seat of King’s Gold Wing. So that’s why he bought it, Becca thought. She saw Elaine whisper something into King’s ear and then heard King laugh heartily, his belly bouncing in small hiccups. She still felt conflicted about her father’s relationship with Elaine, but she couldn’t help smiling. He looked happy.
As Becca searched for Reno’s Harley, she inspected their expanded group. Frank had a picture of Jesus spray-painted onto his gas tank—the Son of God as He might have looked if He were in an eighties hair band. Dooley tossed her his helmet for her inspection. “I’ve got thirty-one stickers!” he announced with the excitement of a little girl. Becca turned the object over in her hands: God Created Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve; VFW: Veterans Fucked by Washington; Jane Fonda, American Traitor Bitch; Jesus Loves You—I Think You Are an Asshole; Politicians and Diapers Need to Be Changed Often and for the Same Reason; If You Can Read This, the Bitch Fell Off.
“It’s great?” she said, unsure of how else to respond. Not so politically correct, these men. Finally, she spotted Reno. He barely looked at her as she climbed on and zipped up her new jacket. “Lovely day, don’t you think?” she said, thrusting a good dose of coldness into her tone. But at the same moment, Reno started the engine, and her voice was revved into nothing.
Now eighteen strong, the line of bikes snaked southwest, heading toward gray mountains that looked upholstered in elephant hide. They stopped for gas once in Colorado and again in New Mexico. At the second stop King handed his daughter a Snickers, a Slim Jim, and an energy drink. “We’re riding through lunch,” he said. “I didn’t want you to go hungry.”
This generosity was so unexpected that Becca felt her throat catch. “I have money, Dad. You don’t have to—”
“You’re my kid.” King’s expression was dead serious. “I won’t have anybody saying I’m not looking out for you. Now, get your helmet on. For some reason, Reno’s acting pissed as hell today.”
Becca climbed on the Harley, perplexed by the dynamic in play. Apparently she couldn’t be in favor with her father and Reno at the same time.
The landscape morphed through the next leg, going from small, scattered boulders dotting dehydrated grass to rocky hills to desert. Becca tried to eat the Snickers but the helmet’s inner padding compressed her cheeks into a fish pucker, and the helmet’s jutting chin piece made it nearly impossible to drink anything without spilling most of the liquid down her neck.
Late afternoon set upon them and then dusk, with streaks of pink and pale yellow crisscrossing the horizon. The color drained from a single point in the distance where a great structure—like a finger of rock—punctured the sky. Just before the last rays vanished, the full formation came into view. Shiprock, said a sign, though it looked less like a ship and more like something from Close Encounters.
The nearby town—also named Shiprock—was an ugly, utilitarian way station through which eighteen-wheelers thundered en route to more populated destinations. Becca climbed off Reno’s bike and stretched her back and quads.
“That’s not the Jane Fonda workout, is it?” Frank said as he walked past. “You better not let Dooley see you doing those exercises.”
“I’m wearing leather, not spandex,” Becca said.
“And it suits you.” Frank gave her an avuncular nod.
The men headed across the parking lot toward a windowless building. Hot Wheels Grill, read the sign, though it looked more like a strip club. Becca had to pee something awful, but she shuddered at the thought of the Hot Wheels bathrooms. Instead, she hurried toward the closest storefront, the Indigenous Hair Salon.
A forty-something woman with ample padding on her chest and stomach sat in a chair as the hairdresser worked neon curlers into her hair. The stylist looked to be in her midtwenties, a little bit arty, a little bit punk. When Becca walked in and asked to use the bathroom, the women just stared. “We’ve been riding forever,” Becca added, worried her leather jacket was giving the wrong impression. Female biker-gang members surely didn’t say things like forever.
“Did you ride in here with those men?” the hairdresser asked, incredulous.
“I love myself a biker,” said the busty woman in the chair. “Or two!” She jumped up, pulled off the salon smock, and scurried to the door, her hips shaking in too-small black pants.
“Cholene. Get your ass back here,” the hairdresser ordered. But Cholene had slipped out the door. She strutted across the parking lot despite the fact that half her head was a junk heap of rollers. “Bathroom’s back there,” the hairdresser said. Becca thanked her and hurried in. “So who are those guys?” the hairdresser called to Becca through the door. “I don’t want Cholene getting into any trouble.”
Becca flushed and came out to wash her hands. “They’re harmless.”
At that moment Cholene reappeared, grinning, her breasts bobbing like buoys. “Some real cute ones, Vicky. And they’re going to the casino after dinner!”
Becca turned toward the door. “Well, thanks,” she said.
“Wait.” Vicky stood with her hand on her hip, biting her lip. “They’re eating in Hot Wheels? That’s not your kind of place.”
Before, Becca had worried that the jacket was giving these women the wrong impression. Now it wasn’t doing its job. Wasn’t it supposed to make her look at least a little intimidating?
“Really,” Vicky said. “There was a knife fight in that place last week. Two people went to the hospital.”
Cholene nodded. “Also, it’s a total hepatitis trap. Even I wouldn’t eat there.”
Becca had known Cholene for all of two minutes, but it was clear that coming from her, the statement carried weight.
“We’ve got Cup o’ Noodles!” Cholene added. “And you could have a trim.” She put her hand up next to her mouth like she was sharing a secret. “Vicky here really needs the business.”
“You sure you don’t mind?” Becca asked, and the women nodded. “Okay,” she said and allowed herself to smile a little. “What kind of noodles you got?”
“So where are you and all your men going?” Vicky asked as she put hot water in the Styrofoam cup and then handed it to Becca.
“They’re not exactly my men,” Becca said as she blew on the soup. She hadn’t had one of these since freshman year. She’d forgotten how delicious they could be when you were really hungry.
“Tell me about the one with the panther eyes,” Cholene said.
“That’s Bull. He’s kind of an asshole.”
“I like myself an ass,” Cholene said and winked. And then, as though concerned she hadn’t been clear enough, “A nice biker ass.”
Vicky snorted. “So you were telling us where you’re going?” she asked, deftly sectioning and pinning Cholene’s hair.
When Becca told them about Utah, Cholene screwed up her face. “There’s nothing to do in Utah.”
“I’m sorry,” Vicky said, “but Shiprock take
s the prize for bumblefuck.”
Becca thought about how far she’d come since leaving Dry Hills—even since Kath’s cabin. She had jumped the dog fence, all right. And yet these women considered their own part of the country more boring and backward than anywhere else on earth. Did anyone not feel boxed in? Was anyone ever satisfied? New Yorkers, maybe. But no, because those were the people who visited Kath in Arkansas. And yet. There’d been a time with Ben when Becca hadn’t wanted any more than exactly what she had.
“So, the place in Utah?” Cholene demanded with a child’s impatience.
“Kleos,” Becca said.
Vicky’s hands went still. “No shit. That’s a ghost town.”
“Now you’ve got her started,” Cholene mumbled. “You know why Vic here doesn’t have a boyfriend? It’s ’cause she wastes every weekend visiting rotting buildings and tetanus traps. Not as bad as hepatitis traps, but still!”
“Cholene doesn’t appreciate history,” Vicky said.
Cholene held up the Us Weekly she was paging through. “I’m more interested in current events.” She winked at Becca a second time.
“My dad’s friend lives there.”
Vicky shook her head. “Doubtful. The closest town is Navajo Perch, about thirty miles away.”
“What do you mean, ‘ghost town’?” Becca asked.
“Kleos used to be Indian land,” Vicky explained. “Then U.S. Marshals discovered the Indians making bullets from the silver they’d mined. Then, well, suddenly it wasn’t Indian land anymore. After that came the prospectors. And after them, I think it was the Mormons. Then the silver ran out. Now it’s empty.”
“Why would anybody waste silver on bullets?” Cholene said.
Vicky wrapped up the final section of Cholene’s hair. “Hair dryer,” she said and pointed to a chair against the wall. Cholene pushed and prodded the rollers with a long, manicured nail. “Leave it alone,” Vicky said.
“I need a cigarette.” Cholene fished in her purse. “Get the history lesson over with while I’m gone.”
“It’s kind of awesome how these places keep trading hands,” Vicky continued. “Proves that nothing really belongs to anybody. I know, that’s not really the indigenous thing to say . . . but I love how the towns are like undiscovered planets or lost civilizations. I’m a sci-fi nerd. So.”
Cholene returned after a few minutes and lowered herself into the chair beneath the dryer. She pointed and flexed her painted toes, admiring them like she was a movie starlet. “Did you say this ghost town was near Navajo Perch? ’Cause I just heard something about that.”
“Did you now?” Vicky said and brought the plastic dryer down over Cholene’s curlers. The woman looked like a stripper-astronaut. Becca tried not to laugh.
“I ran into Ella Gibson and Mindy Nez at the drugstore.”
“Ella’s and Mindy’s husbands are medicine men,” Vicky explained to Becca.
“They mentioned some Facebook rumor about strange ceremonies in the desert. Ritual fires,” Cholene said.
“Ella’s and Mindy’s husbands are on Facebook?”
“Why can’t medicine men be on Facebook?” Cholene demanded. “Anyway, they told their wives that people were being burned out there.”
“That’s Burning Man, Cho.”
“I know Burning Man. That’s not it.”
“Cholene, do you have any idea how you sound to this girl? She’s going to walk out of here thinking we’re lunatics.”
“Vic here is one of three atheists on the rez. You can’t talk to her about anything spiritual. Now, how’s my hair?”
“Are you kidding?” Vicky said. “We just put that thing on.”
“I don’t want to keep the biker men waiting.” Cholene winked yet again at Becca.
The mention of the men reminded Becca that she’d been in the hair salon for a while. She peered through the store window and saw a group smoking outside the bar. She’d been meaning to search Reno’s bike for Kath’s letter, but she’d missed her chance. “I should probably get going,” she said, disappointed to be leaving them so soon. “But maybe I’ll see you later tonight at the casino?”
“You bet!” Cholene beamed.
“Be careful out there, okay?” said Vicky, and Becca understood that her new friends would not be joining her that evening.
“I’m sure things’ll be fine,” she said, hoping that her voice masked her apprehension. The talk of people burning in ritual fires was more than a little worrisome, but nobody was going to mess with the bikers. She was probably safer in their company than she’d ever been. She zipped up the leather jacket.
“You just pull that off the rack?” Vicky asked. “It looks brand-spanking-new. It’s nice with your short hair too—sorry we didn’t get in a trim.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Becca said, her hand on the door. “And I’m still deciding about the jacket.”
“Yeah, leather’s tough to break in,” Vicky agreed. “But once you do, it’s like a second skin.”
“Have fun in Kleos!” Cholene called as Becca stepped into the night. “And when you get to a computer, make sure to write Vic here a good review on Yelp! She needs all the help she can get.”
19
THE HOT WHEELS GRILL was a strip club minus the strippers. The waitress uniforms left little to the imagination, and the banquettes were predictably covered in purple velvet that was oddly similar to the velour on King’s Gold Wing. They were also speckled with rough black patches that, if you were being generous about it, could be dried gum.
Reno slid into a booth at the back of the room and lit up a cigar. A waitress came to take his order and he asked for a chicken salad sandwich and a beer. His crew sat across the room, and Bull stood chatting up one of the waitresses, taking advantage of his relative youth among the bikers. He leaned against the jukebox, his hips thrust forward, redundantly broadcasting his intentions. Becca was nowhere to be seen.
Reno knew he was being juvenile, refusing to tell Becca what was in Kath’s letter. At first, he just hadn’t wanted to deal with it. But now his increasing proximity to Kleos filled him with dread. He needed to treat this situation like he would a Band-Aid: rip the protective cover off, get the pain of it over fast. Reno told plenty of war stories about his time in the service, but this was not one of them. Others were bloodier. Objectively speaking, they were more traumatic. But there wasn’t a one-to-one correlation between the amount of violence in a story and the way it affected you. Telling this tale meant inviting in a complicated and unhappy set of emotions. He just didn’t want to go there. And yet he had been, quite literally, speeding in that direction for the past five days.
Reno had not looked at Kath’s letter once since the Love’s parking lot. Now he pulled it from his jacket pocket and flattened it across the table.
Reno: Despite our differences, I know you’ve long strived to protect my brother. Well, now that burden is fully upon you. King believes in the CO like Jeanine believes in Jesus. This is not a joke for him, and it shouldn’t be for us. The CO is crazy, even dangerous. So what happens when King goes through this ordeal, into which he’s put every last hope, and realizes it’s a sham? And the physical risk! I’m truly afraid for my brother, Reno.
Maybe it’s foolish of me to think that Becca can make a difference. But since they reunited, I’ve noticed a change in King. Haven’t you? She is the one part of him that hasn’t been corrupted by the CO’s nonsense. Maybe you can sneak her into Kleos, like the Trojan horse—or at least get her into my brother’s head so she can show him how much goodness the outside world has to offer.
Now, as for Ben: Please take my girl as far from him as you possibly can. You say that Kleos is like the end of the earth? Well, that’s where she needs to go if it will get her away from that man. I am heartbroken for her, Reno. Which is another reason why you cannot allow King to go through with this. Becca needs his support more than ever now. And he owes her. Bigtime.
I’m relying on you.
Katherine
When Reno first read Kath’s letter, he’d thought only of King. If Kath believed that Becca could help protect his best friend, then Reno would bring the girl along. But that was before he’d gotten to know Becca. Now he felt an obligation to her too.
The day after they’d all left the cabin, Kath called Reno’s cell to say that Ben had shown up, that he had no memory of hurting Becca, and that he was determined to find her. Kath wanted her niece to get an annulment. “Think how free Becca could be if she left that painful romance behind. She could be happy someday,” Kath insisted.
But Reno was reluctant to write Ben off. He himself had come a long way since the early days after the war. Even King, with all of his troubles, had made changes over the years. So second chances were fair and right. Shouldn’t Ben have the same opportunities and the same support? And Reno didn’t believe Becca’s claims about being through with her husband. She was wounded, sure. But sometimes, only the wounded could help each other. Reno knew that in the wrong hands—say, the CO’s hands—this philosophy was dangerous. But there was truth in it if you didn’t fancy yourself some kind of Colonel Kurtz demigod.
Reno was not going to lose King to the CO’s insanity. If Becca’s father locked himself up in Kleos—or if he gave up hope entirely—then Reno, like Becca, would be entirely alone.
Back outside Hot Wheels, Reno walked away from the highway and the rumble of heavy trucks. It was noble of Kath to want to protect her niece. But he had to follow his gut with this one. He pulled out his phone and called Ben.
20
Becca had never been inside a casino before; the one in Shiprock was like the lobby of a not-quite-luxury hotel fused with a video arcade. Everything looked tacky-fancy, from the bronze-colored carpets to the chandeliers dripping with faux crystal. Against the background cacophony of chimes and buzzers, slot-machine patrons stood zombie-eyed before screens, their bodies jerking reflexively like they were on drugs.
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