The Drive

by Tyler Keevil

  I raised her out of the bath and let her drip, like an old washrag. Her coat had soaked up a browny-yellow hue. It reeked, too – a potent blend of beer and whisky. When I dropped her on her seat, she leapt into the back, behind the headrests and as far from me as possible.

  I put the car in gear and kept driving, keeping one eye on her in the rear-view. She was sniffing herself. Then she started to lick and clean her fur. She had to get all that booze off herself, somehow. When she’d finished, she meandered back up to the front to join me. She wobbled a bit in her seat. She was obviously feeling pretty mellow.

  ‘Looks like somebody’s been hitting the sauce,’ I said.

  She leered at me, lay down flat, and passed out.

  After she woke up, and sobered up, the cat got antsy. She turned in circles on her seat. She scratched at the side panelling. She meowed and mewled. I knew what that meant. I pulled over and shoved open the passenger door, but she wouldn’t get out. She thought I was trying to ditch her. So I had to walk around, pick her up, and drop her in the gravel at the roadside.

  ‘Okay, cat,’ I said. ‘Do your thing.’

  She wouldn’t. Not at first. She scratched at the dirt with a paw. Apparently it was no good, that dirt. She picked her way to another spot, like a princess looking for a jewel.

  ‘Come on, cat!’ I said. ‘Hurry it up.’

  To demonstrate how it was done, I unzipped and took a piss. That seemed to encourage her. She finally squatted down to give it a try. Her eyes narrowed and her whiskers trembled. That was why it had been such a big deal: she was doing a number two. It came out in stops and starts. When she’d finished she back-scratched gravel to cover it up. I went over and took a look. She’d left a runny puddle in the dirt. The puddle was filled with worms – little round worms, twisted up like croissants. All her scratching couldn’t hide that.

  I glared at her. ‘You’ve got worms, too?’

  She sat and nibbled on her front paw. I got a napkin from the car and wiped her ass. There were worms on her ass, too. I’d picked up a filthy, wormy, flea-infested cat with an infected eye. That was just like me.

  ‘I ought to leave you here, you know.’

  As I considered it, she rubbed against my leg, curling around it like a feather boa. I sighed, picked her up, and tossed her back in the passenger seat.

  chapter 41

  I unscrewed the lid of the jerry can, and sniffed at the spout to check the contents. It smelled like good clean gasoline. There was a flexible nozzle for pouring. I attached that, twiddled off my gas cap, then tilted the jerry can up to dump the gas into the tank. It was about ten o’clock, and already dusty and hot. We’d driven on until dusk, then parked and crashed out at the roadside. I hadn’t wanted to drive in the dark when I had no idea where I was going.

  ‘Well, cat,’ I said. ‘Let’s see how far this gets us.’

  She ignored me. She was crouched on the tarmac, with her head buried in a saucer that I’d made for her out of an empty beer can. That morning, I’d woken up with her stuck to my chest, like a limpet. She’d been drooling and purring and paddy-pawing me, as if to say, Time to get up – I want some breakfast. But I didn’t have any cat food for her. I didn’t have any food, actually. Or any water. All I had was beer, and we were even running out of that. At least she’d developed a taste for it. Maybe too much of a taste.

  ‘Slow down,’ I told her. ‘Chew your food.’

  I emptied both jerry cans into the tank. Then I replaced the gas cap and started the engine. The gauge had been in the red. I waited for it to adjust. It drifted up to about half a tank. By then the cat had finished her breakfast. I sat down across from her on the tarmac. I’d decided it was time for us to have a little chat, my cat and I. ‘Look,’ I told her. ‘You don’t have to ever worry about me abandoning you. When I took you with me, I was signing on for the long haul. I’m stupid and loyal in that way, like a dog. It’s you cats that are the problem. You’re like women. Fickle and self-centred. Nourishing yourselves from within.’

  The cat licked her lips. She thought I was talking a lot of shit, obviously.

  ‘Whatever,’ I said, adjusting my visor. ‘I’m just saying I’ll look after you. But if we’re going to find our way out of this desert I’ll need your help, okay? We can’t survive on beer and whisky and smokes. We have to get back to civilisation. Otherwise we’ll wind up like that asshole hitchhiker, or those crazies in the diner. You remember them? Your old owners.’

  She’d gone still. Maybe she did remember them.

  ‘So I need you to think, cat. Think. Do you know of any way – any way at all – that we can get out of here?’

  She started to lick her right paw.

  I threw up my hands. ‘You’re useless, cat!’

  The desert slowly dissolved into a wasteland. The roads were disintegrating. The pavement was cracked and buckled and, in places, half-covered by sand. There were no signs – just an endless series of unmarked forks, T-junctions and crossroads. Tumbleweeds pinwheeled alongside us, and dust devils shimmied at the roadside. As we rattled on, I noticed that every so often the cat’s ears went flat and her tail puffed out. It only seemed to happen when the road turned a certain way, so I decided to try an experiment. At the next crossroads we came to I swung wide and wheeled the Neon around in slow circles. Each time we were facing one particular direction, off to the right, the cat would react. I parked and got out to take a look.

  ‘What is it, cat?’ I asked. ‘What’s got you spooked?’

  Then I saw it. On the horizon, shimmering in the heat, stood a mountain with twin peaks. I knew that mountain. I’d spotted it way back at the gas station, before meeting the hunters. It had been on the other side of the plains. Maybe I could use it as a landmark. I hopped back in the Neon and spun her around, until the front bumper was pointed towards the mountain. The cat’s fur flared out and she seemed to double in size, like a blowfish.

  ‘Look, cat,’ I said, ‘I get that you’re not exactly stoked to go to that mountain. But it could be a route out. Maybe the only one.’

  I started driving. The cat still wasn’t happy about it. She growled, low and deep in her throat, like a cougar. Then, when I ignored her, she pissed all over her seat. She did it secretly, crouching down, so I didn’t notice until I caught a whiff of it. Then I looked over and saw the spreading puddle.

  ‘Jesus Christ, cat!’

  I slammed on the brakes and made a grab for her, but she darted under the seat. When I tried to pull her back out, she clawed and scratched at my hands. I gave up and pounded the seat with my palm, just to let her know how insanely angry I was. Then I got a pair of dirty boxers out of the trunk to mop up her piss. Some of it had already soaked into the upholstery. I sponged off what I could and left the sopping boxers at the roadside.

  ‘That’s just like a cat,’ I said, starting the car. ‘That’s so typical.’

  Even with the windows down I could smell the piss. At first, it wasn’t so bad. But, as the day began to heat up, the stench got worse and worse – that sour-milk scent of cat urine. I knew from experience that it would never go away entirely. My poor Neon.

  At one point the cat poked her head out from under the seat. I slapped at her and she withdrew like a tortoise. I could hear her under there, grumbling along with the engine.

  ‘Don’t you dare come out,’ I yelled at her. ‘Stay in your room, you little pisspot.’

  chapter 42

  From a distance, the mountain seemed to stand in isolation. But as we got closer I saw that it was actually part of a larger range – a jumble of jagged, saw-toothed crags that zigzagged off on either side of it. I’d spotted the mountain first because it was higher than all the others. It was also perfectly symmetrical – a pyramid thrusting up against the sky, with a notch cut into the apex that formed the twin peaks. The bowl-shaped rim resembled a massive crater. It must have been a volcano at one time.

  The road stopped bending and winding and became perfectly straight, l
ike a compass needle. I followed the needle, fixed on my mark. Inside the car it was quiet. I’d allowed the cat to come out from under the seat, but we weren’t communicating in any way. She was still mad at me for going in this direction, and I was still mad at her for pissing on the seat. She lay on her belly, sphinx-like, with her paws in front of her and her hind legs hunched up.

  I don’t know how long it took to get there. Hours, probably. In the heat of the wasteland time melted away and became flexible and malleable, meaningless. As we approached the foothills the road narrowed and sloped upwards – steep and straight as an escalator, pulling us along. We were headed for a pass to the left of the mountain. The sun burned low in the sky. Its rays blasted through the windshield, as if I were driving into the flash of a nuclear bomb. I could feel the heat on my cheeks, my torso. I adjusted my visor, squinting against the glare.

  The cat’s tail began to twitch.

  We entered the pass, with the twin peaks looming on our right. I thought I heard thunder rumbling among the mountains, even though there were no clouds. Then I spotted something on the road ahead. I took my foot off the gas, letting the Neon roll to a stop. My route was blocked by two wooden sawhorses. On the other side the asphalt had been dug up in preparation for repaving, and parked on the shoulder were various machines – excavators, wheel loaders, rollers – but they all looked rusty and derelict, long-abandoned. Beyond the construction site the road continued, dropping towards a plain similar to the one I’d crossed. In the distance, way out there, awaited a town. It wasn’t much – just a cluster of low-lying buildings – but it signified the edge of the desert.

  The only problem was this roadblock.

  An arrow spray-painted on the sawhorse pointed to the right, up a side road. Next to the turnoff was a sign: Roadworks Diversion This Way. It had been hung on a post, over what looked like an older sign. I got out to check behind it. The original sign showed a picture of a handgun, above the words North Nevada Shooting Range. That explained the thunder, at least.

  ‘Somebody was trying to hide this, cat,’ I said.

  I got out my road map. I also got out the instructions the border guard had scrawled for me. I thought it might be the same gun range she’d told me about, but it was hard to tell. The hitcher had mentioned one, too. Maybe they’d both been talking about the same place.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked the cat.

  I could tell what she thought. She was staring at the peak with her back arched, ears flat, tail flared. I stared with her for a while, trying to decide. Then I put my map away and turned the wheel, guiding the Neon towards the diversion.

  The cat emitted this hissing snarl.

  ‘I know, cat,’ I said. ‘But it’s the only way.’

  I wasn’t sure if that was strictly true, but it felt true. Not that it mattered to her.

  The detour was some kind of old mining road, gouged into the mountainside, with an overhang looming on the right and a straight drop falling away to the left. The roadbed was pitted with potholes and riddled with rocks. The Neon struggled on, whining and moaning like an old mule. Every so often the bellow of gunfire rolled down from the summit. The road cut back and forth in a series of switchbacks, higher and higher, until it levelled off at a plateau.

  I’d come out at the gun range. If the mountain actually had been a volcano at one time, the range sat right in the crater between the twin peaks. Off to my right squatted a concrete hut, like a bunker. It must have been some kind of office or rental shop, but it wasn’t open. The door had a padlock on it, and steel shutters were drawn across the windows. Adjacent to the hut were the shooting stalls, similar to the kind you’d find at a golf course driving range – all linked together and covered by a corrugated tin roof. We were approaching from the back, so I couldn’t see who was in the stalls, but the parking lot was full of Harleys.

  I pulled up, leaving the engine idling, and looked around. There weren’t any other diversion signs, or any clear exits. I knew I hadn’t missed a turn. I sat there for about three minutes, thinking. Through the windows, I could hear the intermittent reverberation of shots from the range. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  ‘I’m going to have to ask them, cat.’

  She meowed, to show me what she thought of that.

  ‘It’s not like they’ll shoot me on sight.’

  I killed the engine and opened my door. As I turned to get out, the cat pounced on my hand. She bit into it, hard, and hung on. I had to shake her off like a crab and shove her back into her seat. Twin pinpricks of blood showed up on my palm.

  ‘Just chill,’ I told her. ‘I’m only getting directions.’

  She hissed and took a final swipe at me. She knew that there was more to it than that. We both did. I turned my visor around backwards, rolled up my sleeves, and strutted over to the range. Gravel crunched and popped under my shoes. I made sure I had an unlit cigarette tucked behind my ear.

  A doorway was built into the end stall. I cleared my throat, spat, and stepped through. From there I could see all the other stalls. Most of them were empty. In the whole shooting range there was only one customer. He stood way down at the far end: a guy in boots and a leather jacket and dark sunglasses. He was shooting at a target set up out on the range.

  I walked up carefully, not wanting to startle him, and stopped about ten paces away to wait for him to finish. He fired six rounds, one after another. The reports resounded off the sides of the crater, like the pounding of a bass drum. Then he lowered the gun, looked back at me, and grinned – as if he’d known I was there all along.

  chapter 43

  It was the hitcher’s brother, all right. It had to be. They looked almost identical, except this guy was older. His face was rough and weathered, and his lips were parched, as if he’d been out too long in the desert. Trail dust encrusted his hair, making it stick up in spikes. On the back of his jacket was a snake, curled up like a turd, and the words Cobra Motorcycle Club.

  ‘Nice shooting,’ I said.

  He grunted and snapped open the cylinder to his pistol. He was using some kind of monstrous Magnum, even bigger than Pigeon’s gun. As he reloaded, I stepped in closer to him. I couldn’t tell if he really was the same guy I’d met in Vancouver. He didn’t seem to recognise me. Or he was pretending he didn’t.

  ‘You come to shoot?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a little lost.’

  ‘Should have known. You don’t look like you carry.’

  I crossed my arms. ‘Oh, I got a gun, all right.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He scratched at a patch of dry skin under his jaw, then reached for another slug and thumbed it into the chamber. ‘You know how to use it? That’s the real question.’

  ‘I shot an eagle with it.’

  ‘That’s nothing. I’ve shot tons of eagles. I kill eagles for fun.’

  He spun the cylinder, snapped it shut. On the counter next to his box of ammo sat a liquor bottle, blue and bulbous, with a corked top. The guy pulled out the cork, took a swig, then made that satisfied, lip-smacking sound and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Inside the bottle, coiled up on the bottom, was some kind of a snake, its skin all pale from pickling, like a tapeworm.

  I asked, ‘Do you know the way out of here? I’m following the roadworks diversion.’

  ‘Depends where you’re headed.’

  ‘Winnemucca, first.’

  ‘Going to the whorehouse, huh?’

  ‘Maybe. You know it?’

  ‘Course I do.’ He leered at me, and made a pumping motion with his hips. ‘I been there tons of times. I’ve fucked all the whores at that place, at least three times. In the ass.’

  He was obviously one of those guys – the kind that’s done everything you’ve done, only backwards and blindfolded.

  ‘So which way is it?’

  ‘What’s the rush, kid? Go get your gun. Fire off a few rounds with me.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time,’ I said.

  ‘Hell – it won’t take long. We�
��re gonna lose the light in half an hour, anyways.’

  He pointed up, towards the rim of the crater. Just above it hung the sun, fat and red and gaping, like a bullet hole blasted into the sky. The dying light trickled across the range.

  ‘And then you’ll tell me the way?’

  ‘Of course. Ain’t no secret.’

  I couldn’t read his expression. It was hard to see anything behind those sunglasses. It was as if he didn’t even have eyes.

  ‘All right. Half an hour.’

  I went to get my gun. The cat was huddled in the space behind the headrests. She glared at me through the rear windshield as I dug the Glock and ammo out of the trunk. I didn’t even bother trying to explain myself to her this time. She didn’t want to hear it.

  When I got back, the biker was out on the range setting up fresh targets for both of us. I took the stall next to his. Each stall had a counter, separating it from the range, that you had to shoot across. I laid my pistol and ammo box on the counter and began filling the magazine with cartridges. They tingled coolly between my fingertips.

  He came back and watched me.

  ‘What you got there?’ he asked. ‘A twenty-two? Only pussies use a twenty-two, kid. My mama packs a twenty-two. Hell, my grandma packs a twenty-two. Now this –’ he held up his revolver ‘– is a real man’s hand cannon. A Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum.’

  ‘Well, you know what they say.’ I jammed the magazine into the gun butt. It made a satisfying click. ‘It’s not the size that matters – it’s what you do with it.’

  I surveyed the range. It was about three hundred yards long, with a mound of earth raised at the far end, like the wall of a half-pipe, to absorb bullets. I could see solid targets down there, probably for rifles. Closer to us were some metal stands, like easels, that held paper posters. The posters showed a silhouette of a person, with a bull’s-eye over the head and another over the chest. The two he’d set up for us were twenty or thirty yards away.